Continual Evolution

Trade: Buy IBN

Rating: 1.00 not yet rated(1 votes)    Vote:

You are logged in as | Logout

Yesterday I bought ADR shares of ICICI Bank, the leading private bank in India. Basically it is an indirect way to play the growth of Indian economy which I feel is on a long term convergence path. The formerly socialist economy was dominated by extremely inefficient state run banks, allowing nimbler and aggressive competitors like ICICI to rapidly take market share via innovative, technology led service offerings. They have four growth "cylinders":
- consumer loans to the newly forming g middle class
- industrial loans to companies building out Indian infrastructure
- remittances home from emigrants as well as facilitating Indian companies expanding abroad
- a new rural initiative thru clever use of technology to achieve scale

The first three cylinder are firing and the fourth has a decent chance of succeeding. As a near term catalyst, ICICI plans to sell a stake in its insurance subsidiary near the year end, which is also market leader in the fast growing insurance market. This should add visibility to this hidden gem within ICICI and could provide a nice bump to the stock.