The following is with reference to (Business Line : Markets / Stock Markets : Investment Focus - ICICI Bank: Buy). Please correct wherever I am wrong.

1) "As ICICI Bank embarks on a growth phase after cleaning up its loan book over the last three fiscal years, the prospects seem promising."
Loan book here, I am thinking, refers to its assets side of the balance sheet wherein it gives loans to others.

2) "The bank in FY10 adopted a strategy to improve low-cost deposit ratio"
What is "deposit ratio"?

3) "At the current market price of Rs 1,060, the stock trades at price-to-earnings ratio of 19.8 times based on consolidated FY-11 numbers. The fair value of all the subsidiaries (AMC, insurance, securities and international subsidiaries) works out to about Rs 260 per share."
Yes, it is speaking of the consolidated p/e ratio and also the fair value of the subsidaries. CRISIL usually uses DCF method to calculate the fair value, I am assuming BL also uses a similar method.

4) Strong capital adequacy ratio (19.54 per cent as of March 2011)
Capital adequacy ratio, as per BASEL recommendation should be above 8, as per the stricter singaporean recommendation above 12. So 19 is good.

5) high CASA proportion (45 per cent of the total deposits)
Not sure what CASA is. I am guessing it is current account savings account proportion but what does it signify and how to interpret it?

6) The bank has already achieved provision coverage as mandated by the RBI.
I am guessing provisions are the capital set aside for NPA and the like..

7) The NIM for 2010-11 was at 2.6 per cent, which can be maintained at current levels as margins on overseas loans improve. The international loans enjoyed a low margin of 0.85 per cent last fiscal; while new loans are fetching 1.5-2 per cent margins.
NIM is net interest margin and (must be differentiated from net interest spread).

8) Additionally around 57 per cent of the loan book is pegged to floating rates, with a third of fixed-rate loans maturing this year, they may get re-priced at the higher rates.
floating rates are pegged to either the RBI interest rates or LIBOR + some constant percent.

9) It is also losing money on security receipts on NPAs sold to Asset Reconstruction Company.
Introduction is here - home

1. Yes, loan book refers to the loans that a bank has given to others.

2. Here "deposit ratio" means ratio of CASA deposits to total deposits with the bank.

The money that a bank has in savings accounts and current accounts have a low cost.

For savings accounts, the bank has to give 4% interest and for current accounts, the bank has to give no interest.

For fixed deposits, a bank has to pay higher interest.

3. I usually don't use DCF for stock valuation. There is compounding involved in DCF. Even if one of the assumptions used in DCF calculations is incorrect, the error gets magnified in the final calculated value of the cash flows because of compounding involved.

I prefer simpler ratio-based metrics like PE ratio and Price-to-Book ratio.

4. I am not sure about the capital adequacy of the bank. I doubt it is so high (19%). I will check the FY 2011 balance sheet and update later.

5. Explained in point 2.

Lower is the cost of deposits for a bank, higher will be its NIM.

6. Yes, provisions are the capital set aside for future losses, future expenses etc.

7. Net interest margin is different from net interest spread.

This may be helpful:

Net interest spread - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Net interest margin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

8. Bank have their own "base rate" which is used as a benchmark for "floating rates".

9. I don't have much idea about that issue.

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9. It is the MTM loss on the securitized NPA that are sold to the asset reconstruction companies.