IDFC may not stay the course and persist in bidding for a 26% stake in IFCI. That is according to IDFC Managing Director and CEO Rajiv Lall. Lall blamed it on the IFCI price, which he said, has run up too fast in recent weeks.

At the end of the day it has to be a sound value proposition and the value proposition is linked amongst other things to the price. As you know the price in the markets for IFCI has run up quite a bit & I think one of the challenges with that transaction is that we are constrained as we must be to bid for this listed company on the basis of SEBI guidelines & SEBI guidelines are linked to the market price. So if the market price has run up somewhat more aggressively then we think is warranted then the floor for the bid price may become challenging for many investors including IDFC, he says

If IDFC drops out it will be the third potential bidder after Kotak and New Bridge, to have expressed interest but later backed out. The other contenders for the IFCI stake include the Blackstone group, General Electric Capital Corp Cargill ventures, French bank Natixis and a group led Wilbur Ross and comprising Goldman Sachs group, Standard Chartered plc and HDFC.