ICICI plans addl provision to cover Lehman investment

MUMBAI: India's largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, on Tuesday said that it would make an additional provisioning of USD 28-million (around Rs 112-crore) to cover its investments in the bankrupted US Bank Lehman Brothers' senior bonds.
       
"ICICI Bank UK PLC already holds a provision of about USD 12-million against investment in senior bonds of Lehman Brothers Inc...considering a 50 per cent recovery estimate, the additional provision required would be about USD 28-million," ICICI Bank's Joint Managing Director, Chanda Kochhar, said in a statement issued here.
       
However, the bank has not been majorly impacted owing to its exposure to Lehman Brothers, she said.
       
"There is no other material impact on ICICI Bank or ICICI Bank UK PLC on account of exposure to Lehman Brothers," Kochhar said.
       
The US banking major, the fourth-largest US securities house founded in 1850, on Monday said it filed for bankruptcy protection in New York after it failed to survive the global financial turmoil.
       
Kochhar said ICICI Bank has a total of around USD 80-million exposure in senior bonds of Lehman Brothers Inc.
       
This constitutes less than one per cent of ICICI Bank UK PLC's total assets, which is around USD 8.7-billion and less than 0.1 per cent of the group's total assets.
       
As on June 30, 2008, ICICI Bank and its subsidiaries had consolidated total assets of Rs 4,84,643-crore.