Singapore government's investment arm Temasek Holdings' unit Allamanda Investments today sold shares worth $300

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million (about Rs 1,500 crore) in India's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank.

As per the bulk deal transaction data at stock exchanges, about 40 per cent of the sold shares were acquired by global financial services giant Goldman Sachs, but the identity of the other buyers could not be ascertained.

Sources said that Goldman Sachs was only managing the transaction, but did not divulge the name of the entity on whose behalf these shares were purchased.

The shares of ICICI Bank today slipped 1.8 per cent to close at Rs 919.85, after hitting an intra-day low of Rs 909.8 and a high of Rs 930.

In various open market transactions, Temasek unit Allamanda Investments Pte Ltd today sold about 1.59 crore shares of ICICI Bank at a price of Rs 924.05 a piece, thus garnering about Rs 1,470 crore from the sale through bulk deals at the National Stock Exchange.

At the same time, Goldman Sachs Investments (Mauritius) Ltd purchased about 64.6 lakh shares of ICICI Bank for about Rs 600 crore through bulk deals at the NSE.

The shares sold by Allamanda account for about 1.4 per cent stake in ICICI Bank and little below half of the shares held by this Singapore firm in the Indian bank.

There have been talks for some time that Temasek was looking to pare its holding in ICICI Bank.

As on December 31, 2011, Allamanda held about 4 crore shares of ICICI Bank, accounting for a 3.46 per cent stake. Besides, the Singapore government also separately held 1.68 per cent stake in the Indian bank at that time.

Market analysts said that Temasek has been gradually paring its stake in ICICI Bank for the past few years and it had raised its stake in the Indian lender to about 9 per cent at one point of time, after its first purchase of about 5 per cent stake way back in 2003.

They said that the shares could have been sold to book profit after a sharp rally of about one-third in the value of ICICI Bank shares since the beginning of 2012. Prior to this, the ICICI Bank shares had lost about 40 per cent in 2011.

The other major shareholders of ICICI Bank include Deutsche Bank Trust Company (10.12 per cent), LIC (3.46 per cent) and Europacific Growth Fund (2.36 per cent).

Besides, Bajaj Allianz Life, Aberdeen Global, Carmignac Gestion, Bajaj Holdings, New Perspective Fund and SBI Life also hold over one per cent each in ICICI Bank.

Indian banking stocks have witnessed many share transactions in the recent past, given a sharp surge in their value since the beginning of 2012.

Earlier this month, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra Bank have also seen their shares changing hands in large open market transactions.