ICICI stock gains nearly 11% on results

Mumbai: Shares of ICICI Bank rose 10.8% to Rs 841 on Monday after the private lender reported better-than-expected results over the weekend, which led to the bank being re-rated by analysts. ICICI added over Rs 56,000 crore to its market cap during the day to end at over Rs 5.8 lakh crore, contributing the most to the sensex’s 145-point gain.
“Be it margins, asset quality, current accounts & savings accounts, balance sheet growth, earnings growth and, finally, return on assets (RoA) — ICICI has done a brilliant job under Sandeep Bakhshi,” said Macquarie Capital research analyst Suresh Ganapathy.The private lender’s retail loans haves grown nearly three times faster than the industry at 19%. Its bad loans have been at the lowest level since 2014.
“What is encouraging is that ICICI continues to scale new heights of profitability every quarter. Margins at 4% were the highest seen in the history. Improvement quarter-on-quarter was driven by falling cost of deposits and lower interest reversals. Consequently, RoA (annualised) for the quarter stood at 1.8%,” said Ganapathy in a note.
An analyst report by Emkay Global Financial Services said, “Corporate growth should revive soon too. ICICI Bank, armed with its strong product offerings, franchise network and superior digi-banking platform, should deliver better credit growth and thus core profitability as well.”