The U.S.-based private equity giant Carlyle Group sold all of its remaining shares in India's leading housing finance company, Housing Development and Financing Corp, HDFC, on Thursday night for $831 million, making it India's fourth-largest equity deal for the year, reported Reuters.

Carlyle's 3.7 percent remaining stake amounted to 53 million shares and followed the sale of approximately a 25 percent stake in the company in January, which raised $270 million. Together these sales doubled Carlyle's initial investment in the company in 2007 of $650 billion TheTimes of India reported.

So far this year, India's largest equity trade came one month after Carlyle's first sale in January, when Citi sold its remaining stake in HDFC for $1.9 billion. 

The shares were sold to approximately 40-50 investors, most foreign institutional investors, according to HDFC Chief Executive Keki Mistry as told the CNBC-TV18 television channel and reported to The Wall Street Journal.

HDFC stock was up 21 percent year-to-date at the time of the sale after hitting its lowest point in May.

The deal followed a second round of reform measures announced by the government, including increasing the foreign ownership limit of the country's insurance companies to 49 percent and allowing foreign investment in pensions for the first time.

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