From brush with death to being world's richest banker

NEW DEHLI • If it were not for a cricket accident that almost killed him, Mr Uday Kotak probably would not be the world's richest banker.

A ball that hit him in the head and led to emergency surgery pushed Mr Kotak, then 20, to abandon his dream of becoming a professional player. After a brief stint at the family's cotton-trading business, he went on to pursue his Master of Business Administration at Mumbai's prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, before starting out in finance in 1985 at the age of 26.

Mr Kotak, now 61, has a fortune estimated at around US$16 billion (S$21 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

While India has been grappling with a shadow-lending crisis, his Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) has been able to rise through the crowd, gaining investors' trust by starting to slow lending to riskier sectors more than two years ago and keeping good corporate governance.

When the pandemic added to the industry's woes by eroding borrowers' ability to repay, the firm was one of the first to raise capital to fortify its balance sheet, helping to boost investors' confidence that it will be among the biggest winners as the nation emerges from its Covid-19-induced recession.

The strategy paid off: As lenders have plunged globally, KMB shares are up 17 per cent this year, and Mr Kotak just gained an extension to his chief executive term for another three years.

"As far as I am concerned, becoming the world's richest banker is only a proxy for Uday being one of the world's smartest bankers," said Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra, whose tie-up with Mr Kotak back in 1986 led to the firm's name. "More importantly, he has understood that what makes a bank sustainable and durable is not just smart strategies but unassailable governance."

Mr Kotak's firm stands out in a nation where lenders have some of the worst bad-loan ratios in the world.

Trouble started brewing for the firms in 2015 when India's regulator initiated a massive audit that unearthed hidden souring loans.

That led to a shadow-banking crisis that constrained the broader economy and further hurt asset-quality scores and profits.

KMB, though, was able to adapt.

It reduced lending to small and medium-sized companies and unsecured individuals. Its shares have rallied more than 24 per cent in each of the past three years.

While its bad-loan ratio has risen this year, it ranked as the second lowest among peers, with its capital-adequacy score being the highest. The nation's second-largest lender by market value reported an unexpected 27 per cent profit surge in the quarter ended Sept 30.

The firm got another boost last month, when the central bank proposed increasing the ownership limit for founders, effectively reducing the risk that Mr Kotak will be forced to dilute his 26 per cent stake in the lender as previously demanded by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Mr Kotak set up an investment company in 1985 with a 3 million rupee loan from family and friends and partnered with Mr Mahindra the following year.

The firm, which started off discounting bills, later expanded its loan portfolio and got into stock brokering, investment banking, insurance and mutual funds.

It converted into a lender in 2003 after getting RBI's nod.

The financier has been KMB's CEO since its beginning and gained more control of it in 2006 by ending a partnership of more than a decade with Goldman Sachs Group.

He rose through the ranks by keeping strong underwriting practices and avoiding lending to riskier sectors, focusing instead on expanding collateral-backed loans for farm equipment, mortgages and vehicles, according to HDFC Securities researcher Deepak Jasani.

While RBI just approved the extension of Mr Kotak's CEO term, investors are starting to wonder what will happen after he hands over the reins. Unlike the heads of many family-owned enterprises in India, Mr Kotak has avoided enrolling family members into the lender's board or in top executive positions.

That helped maintain investors' and depositors' confidence in a country where the lack of corporate governance and transparency has already brought down three banks and pushed two shadow lenders to bankruptcy in fewer than two years.

"It has been all Uday," said Mr Ananth Narayan, a former banker and now an associate professor of finance at Mumbai's S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research.

"There are a lot of good people under him but, frankly, they are all overshadowed by Uday. Anybody who has to step into Uday's shoes has a tough job."

For now, Mr Kotak is still very much at the helm.

The firm is exploring a takeover of smaller rival IndusInd Bank, people familiar with the matter said in October, a move that would cement KMB's position as one of India's leading private lenders and boost its assets by more than 80 per cent.

Looking back, Mr Mahindra says his decision in the 1980s to bet on Mr Kotak has been rewarding.

"I vividly recall both my father and uncle asking me at that time why I had so much faith in this young man fresh out of business school," he said. "I told them that I had a hunch that one day we would be very pleased to have our name associated with his."

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