IDBI Bank shares down 16.5% after govt stake sale plan is reportedly scrapped

The stock of IDBI Bank Ltd. fell the most since at least June 2024 after reports that the government has decided to scrap its stake-sale plans due to lacklustre bidding.

On Monday (16 March 2026), IDBI Bank's share price fell as much as 16.48% to an intraday low of ₹77.00 apiece on the BSE even as the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex remained largely flat.

The government is set to scrap the bids it received for a majority stake in IDBI Bank Ltd. as the amounts were below the minimum price sought, Bloomberg News reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. That, effectively, brings a halt to the IDBI Bank stake sale process, they said.

While the sources didn’t identify the bidders, Bloomberg News had previously reported that Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. was the frontrunner for what would have been the biggest foreign investment in India’s banking sector, and that Emirates NBD had also bid.

“IDBI Bank is not in a position to either confirm or deny the referenced news report,” the lender said in an exchange filing today.

The 61% stake that the government and Life Insurance Corp. of India planned to sell in the private lender is worth about $6.5 billion at the current market price.

The Narendra Modi-led government has been looking to sell the Mumbai-based lender for several years, part of its efforts to pare state ownership in the banking sector. IDBI Bank returned to profitability in recent years after capital support and aggressive recoveries helped it cut non-performing assets.