Citigroup to sell stake in India's HDFC Citigroup is preparing to sell its 9.85 per cent stake in Housing Development Finance Corporation, people familiar with the deal said. The US bank plans to sell 145.26m shares in India's leading house finance company as part of a block trade, with an offer range of between 630 and 703 rupees. At the upper range the deal would be worth $2.1bn. A final price will be announced before markets open in India on Friday morning. The move by Citi raises questions over the future of some of its other equity investments, such as a stake in China's Guangzhou Development Bank, which was acquired along with the HDFC stake in a push for "strategic" international financial investments led by former chief executive Chuck Prince. Citi first invested in HDFC in 2005, but acquired the majority of its stake when it bought Standard Life's 9.3 per cent stake in the business for $673m in 2006, a deal that made it the largest foreign shareholder in the company. "Citi has held their stake in HDFC for a long time, but the stock only provides steady and predictable growth," said Deven Choksey, managing director at KR Choksey, a Mumbai-based stockbroker. "Basically I think they see better options for their capital, especially given the sharp rise in the market since the beginning of the year," he said. India's has been one of the world's best performing leading stock markets in 2012, with the benchmark SENSEX breaking 18,000 in mid-February, for the first time since August 2011. It closed at 18,078 on Thursday. Citi is the largest foreign direct investor in Indian financial services, with about $4bn of capital invested in the country. Citi and HDFC refused to comment on the sale. At one stage the bank owned more than 11.4 per cent of the lender, but cut its stake in June 2011 by 1.5 per cent, at the time earning a pre-tax profit of $160m. The bank said the previous sale was prompted by changes to its capital structure in anticipation of implementation of Basel III banking rules. HDFC, officially recognised as a non-bank financial company, pioneered the concept of home mortgages in India over the last three decades, and is now the country's largest mortgage lender. It is also the promoter behind HDFC Bank, India's third-largest by assets.