HDFC shares fall as Carlyle exits

HDFCShares in HDFC Ltd (Housing Development Finance Ltd) slipped nearly five per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), after Carlyle Group LP quit the business by offloading its remaining stake in the company.

US-based private equity player Carlyle Group offloaded its entire 3.7 per cent stake or around 57 million shares in HDFC via the open market for nearly Rs 4,300 crore. Carlyle sold the shares at an average price of Rs 761.42 each.

Following the announcement of the stake sale, stock in HDFC slipped 4.89 per cent to close Rs 749.65 a share on Friday. At one point, the stock hit an intra-day 52-weekhigh of Rs 793.85 a share.

Bhavna Thakur, director of Equity Capital Markets Origination at Citi India, said, “Citi helped raise Rs 4,340 crore for Carlyle Group by selling their residual stake in HDFC, concluding the largest block trade stake monetisation by a private equity investor in India.”

In February this year, Citigroup Inc had offloaded the entire of its 9.85 per cent stake in HDFC for around $1.9 billion.

However some analysts, like Madhumita Ghosh of Unicon Financial Intermediaries, are of the view that the exit by Carlyle would not impact HDFC.

The US-based private equity player had held the shares through one of its entities called CMP Asia.

The stock exchanges didn’t reveal the names of the buyers, but the sources said that the shares were mostly bought by foreign investors.