While most believed ICICI Bank’s Rs 3,250-crore loan to the Videocon Group in 2012 followed a Rs 64-crore loan from Videocon chairman Venugopal Dhoot to ICICI Bank MD Chanda Kochhar’s husband Deepak Kochhar, Vaghul pointed out that no fresh loans were given in 2012.
Vaghul told CNBC-TV18 that, like many other banks, ICICI Bank too had given many loans to various Videocon group firms. In 2012, the lead bank, State Bank of India, asked all consortium members to consolidate their loans into one big loan. The Rs 3,250-crore loan, Vaghul said, resulted from this consolidation and that no new loans were given in 2012.
In its original press release on March 28, ICICI Bank noted, “In 2012, a consortium of over 20 banks … sanctioned facilities to Videocon Group … for a debt consolidation programme … aggregating approximately Rs 40,000 crore … ICICI Bank’s current exposure … is part of this syndicated consortium arrangement.”
On Tuesday, in response to a query on whether the matter was examined by the audit committee and its whistleblower committee, ICICI Bank repeated “In 2012, a consortium of over 20 banks … sanctioned facilities to Videocon Group … for a debt consolidation programme … aggregating approximately Rs 40,000 crore … ICICI Bank’s current exposure … is part of this syndicated consortium arrangement.” It still did not highlight that no new loans were sanctioned/disbursed in 2012 and that this was simply a consolidation of existing loans.