Mr Bankable

Uday Kotak has steered the Kotak Mahindra group successfully through three decades, and some tumultuous times

- Salil Panchal

Several banks in India are going to end this decade financially weak, disoriented in their corporate strategy and averse to risk, hurt by either injudicious lending or unscrupulous business practices. One, Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB), the institution managing director and CEO Uday Kotak has built since 2003—alongside several subsidiaries including asset management and insurance businesses—stands out as an exception.

Years of rising bad loans, a slowing economy and a spate of banking frauds have seen banks turn risk-averse. But KMB has proved that appropriate risk evaluation and a conservative approach can bring success in an extremely challenging environment. This comes from one of Kotak’s business mantras: “Do not take an equity type of risk which could bring you debt type of return.”

It is this prudence that has seen his stature rise at a time when leadership skills and mentoring in India’s banking space are in major deficit. Kotak is now India’s fifth-richest Indian with a net worth of $14.8 billion. KMB, in which Kotak and the promoter group own a 29.97 percent stake, is India’s fourth-largest private bank by asset size.

His abilities as an institution builder have been evident over the three-decade journey of transforming the non-banking financial company (NBFC) Kotak Mahindra Finance (from the earlier bill-discounting business started in 1985) into a bank in 2003, and also growing its various subsidiaries within the group, whose total assets are worth ₹400,342 crore.