ICICI Bank a top buy for brokerages

MUMBAI: Brokerages have maintained bullish views on private sector lender ICICI Bank and some have even raised the target price on the stock after it reported a 260.5 per cent growth in standalone profit to ₹4,402.61 crore from a year ago.

Shares of ICICI Bank ended down 1.6 per cent at ₹570.05 on Friday.

CLSA, Dolat Capital, Edelweiss Wealth, Emkay Global and Motilal Oswal have maintained a buy rating. CLSA has raised the target price on ICICI Bank to ₹825 from ₹800 and Dolat Capital has raised it to ₹700 from ₹640.


“ICICI reported a strong quarter, led by healthy business performance across all business segments...However, rising Covid-19 cases and regional lockdown would be a key to watch out for in the near term,” said Motilal Oswal.

ICICI Bank, along with Axis Bank, remains the top sector pick for CLSA.

“With 4-6 per cent higher earnings estimates, we expect the bank to deliver a 15 per cent-16 per cent RoE (return on equity) by FY23, and its current valuation of 1.6 times FY23 book is undemanding given the improvement in its growth outlook, granularity of earnings and RoE,” said CLSA.