ICICI Bank is the only Indian company that has caught the imagination of Col Muammar Gaddafi's Libya Investment Authority (LIA). A report leaked in the NGO Global Witness showed that ICICI Bank ADRs were the only Indian investment made by LIA and constituted 0.61 per cent of the fund's “non-strategic equity assets” under management of $2.46 billion.
The sovereign fund controlled by Gaddafi had invested $29.6 million in ICICI Bank ADRs which were worth $31.9 million as at the end of June quarter in calendar year 2010.
ADRs are receipts issued to investors in the US market denominated in the US dollar by a local depository against shares of Indian companies held by a global custodian in a pre-fixed ratio. They do not give the holder any voting or controlling right in a company.
It is interesting to note that LIA had made “strategic equity investments” in bellwethers such as Siemens AG, Pearson Plc and BASF and “non-strategic equity investments” in well-known global brands such as General Electric Co, Bayer AG, Pfizer Inc, AT&T, Vodafone, Vivendi, Nokia, Lafarge, Roche, Caterpillar, Tesco, Schlumberger, Exxon Mobil, RBS, Sanofi-aventis, Royal Dutch Shell and Nestle.
Out of its $3.39 billion in fixed income assets, 54.9 per cent was deployed in bonds, mainly US, European and UK treasuries. The remaining was invested through an externally managed bond portfolio by Nomura, Western and BNY in global government fixed income instruments of one to three year tenors with a minimum rating of A/A2.
In the second quarter of the calendar year 2010, the fund added $630.8 million of assets in both fixed income and equity, out of which $388 million was deployed in equity shares of companies such as Unicredit, Pearson, ENI and Pfizer to name a few.
LIA's had also invested in the private equity funds of RBS, Carlyle, Goldman Sachs, ABC Bahrain Navis and Celtic Pharmaceutical to the tune of $5.35 billion.
HSBC and Goldman Sachs were among the key Western bankers to this sovereign fund, said the report.