SBI breathing down ICICI Bank's neck in market-cap race
₹1.44 trillion. Then, the state-run lender came from behind, dramatically shrinking the gap to just ₹585.5 billion in the past 12 trading sessions through 23 February, as SBI joined a rally in stocks of public sector companies. As of Friday, SBI's market cap stood at ₹6.77 trillion, against ICICI Bank's ₹7.44 trillion, Bloomberg data showed.
Investors are betting on greater operational efficiency, robust loan growth and stable credit costs at the state-run bank, analysts said. They believe the outperformance could continue, and that SBI's market cap might converge with ICICI Bank's over the coming months. "Low cost of deposits, healthy loan growth and use of better technology to gain more customers are among the factors markets are pricing in, which has caused the value re-rating," said A.
Balasubramanian, MD & CEO, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC. "It's quite probable that the PSU banking stock could maintain its momentum," Balasubramanian said when asked whether SBI's market cap could converge with ICICI Bank's. Bloomberg data over five years shows that the last time SBI was ahead of ICICI Bank in market cap was in 2019.
Between 25 February and 6 August 2019, the SBI stock traded at an average daily value of ₹29,686.07 crore above ICICI Bank's. After that, ICICI Bank pulled ahead, with the gap between the two expanding to a record ₹1.76 trillion on 7 August last year. From 10 March last year through 7 February 2024, ICICI Bank's market cap stayed ahead of SBI by more than ₹1 trillion on a daily basis, shrinking below that mark only after 8 February.
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