India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approves Canada’s Fairfax Financial Holdings’ bid to buy a 60.72% controlling stake in IDBI Bank for ₹52,878 crore (about US$5.6 billion), in what multiple outlets describe as India’s biggest bank deal. The agreement follows a prolonged government disinvestment process and brings a foreign investor into the lender’s ownership structure.
The deal value and stake split are reported consistently. NDTV and other outlets say the purchased controlling stake comprises 30.48% held by the government and 30.24% held by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). After the transaction, the government and LIC together retain 34% in IDBI Bank. Several reports also highlight that Fairfax must meet Reserve Bank of India fit-and-proper requirements.
Earlier coverage adds context on the bank’s turnaround and the sale’s extended timeline. One outlet recounts that IDBI Bank faced RBI restrictions under the Prompt Corrective Action framework in 2017, later exited the framework around 2021, and had repeated rounds of bidding with regulatory scrutiny and reserve-price revisions. Other outlets frame the transaction as part of India’s broader push to reduce state ownership and attract foreign capital into the financial sector.
