Global private equity major Carlyle Group has sold 20 million shares of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) in a bulk deal amounting to nearly R1,355 crore. According to sources, Aberdeen Asset Management, Capital International and HSBC were among the buyers.
According to data available on BSE website, CMP Asia sold 20 million at R 677.21 per share?around 3% discount to Tuesday’s closing price. Deutsche Bank was the sole manager to the transaction. While the large chunk of shares was sold in a number of tranches, the names of all the buyers could not be ascertained. Aberdeen, Capital International and HSBC were, however, believed to be the buyers of the largest chunk, according to institutional traders.
HDFC chief executive Keki Mistry told Reuters that domestic as well as foreign investors bought shares sold by Carlyle. Some other long-only funds are also believed to have bought a part of the HDFC block.
Post Wednesday’s sale, Carlyle will still continue to hold around 5.7 crore shares in the country’s largest mortgage lender. In 2007, Carlyle bought 5.2% stake in HDFC for around R2,638 crore. It had bought 15.2 million shares after which HDFC announced a 5:1 stock split in 2010 that brought down Carlyle’s effective purchase price to R346 a share.
