ICICI Bank is a stock to watch: Prakash Diwan

In a chat with ET Now, Prakash Diwan, Director, Altamount Capital, shares his views on ICICI Bank.

ET Now: Do you think right now ICICI Bank is in a sweet spot?

Prakash Diwan: Absolutely, the numbers have not been dramatic which means that you probably do not have disappointment going forward because otherwise on a Q on Q basis it becomes difficult for some of these large balance sheets to manage rewarding themselves with decent numbers.

The other thing which ICICI Bank has managed even in this tough regime is that they have focus on for a long time. It is the decisive corporate and retail mix that they have had has helped them grow in a very decent clip. Theie CASA growth has been very consistent that we used to see in HDFC Bank’s case for a long time.

So ICICI has kind of managed to replicate the same strategy, get the same kind of a sales ethos in the team and there is lot of fee based income that is kind of getting generated. The best part about ICICI Bank apart from the technical factors that you have mentioned about the holding limits is that it is still got no CDR worries that are going to be a something which you do not know a Pandora’s box that yet to be opened.

Axis would probably still have some of those concerns which we do not know about but the CDR cases that ICICI has very clearly are the first ones to start getting themselves into a healthier zone.

If things look up when the new government happens and stability comes back so my sense is ICICI Bank definitely is poised for a decent rerating of sorts and the downside is absolutely the minimal in all the top private sector banks out there.

So definitely ICICI Bank is a stock to watch and if you want to play the banking sector going forward it is one of the best proxies right now.