ICICI financial position sound: KV Kamath

Mumbai, Sep 30 (IANS) India's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank Tuesday denied its financial position was weak.

'These rumours are baseless and malicious. We have a strong capital position with net profit of over $10 billion and total assets over $105 billion,' according to ICICI Bank CEO and managing director K.V. Kamath.

ICICI Bank UK Plc, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the bank, has zero exposure to US sub-prime credit crisis and zero non-performing loans, Kamath said in a statement.

'The impact of current market conditions on investment portfolio valuation will not pose any challenge to ICICI Bank's capital position,' he said.

Earlier in September, there were market rumours of some top members of ICICI Bank offloading the bank's shares on account of a funds crunch.

ICICI, through its London-based subsidiary had around 57 million euro exposure in senior bonds of Lehman Brothers Inc.

However, the bank said it had not been impacted much by closure of Lehman Brothers, which constitutes less than one percent of ICICI Bank UK Plc's total assets and 0.1 percent of ICICI group.