Kotak Mahindra Bank
Kotak Mahindra Bank is an elite financial institution, but what often surprises people is the speed with which is has become such a mainstay across corporate and investment banking. Kotak is virtually ever-present in the corporate finance sector, banking India’s leading industrial groups, but also focusing heavily on the country’s army of future corporate stars.
Speaking to KVS Manian, Kotak Mahindra Bank’s president of corporate, institutional and investment banking, who joined in 1995, eight years before the group secured a banking licence, you hear the pride in the way he and the bank work.
He says no domestic lender can compete with Kotak’s corporate and investment banking services – and he’s right. Its corporate division posted a 24% year-on-year rise in advances in the three months to the end of December 2016, with revenues up 23% over the same period.
In investment banking, Kotak remains a consistent power player in M&A and equity capital markets deal-flow. It ranked fifth in announced, and third in completed, M&A activity in 2016, finalizing 19 deals worth $4 billion for a 12% market share, according to Dealogic.
In ECM it ranked third in 2016, completing 13 deals worth $725 million for a 7.2% share of the market. Key deals included a lead manager role on the $450 million October 2016 initial public offering of PNB Housing Finance, the home finance arm of state-run lender Punjab National Bank, and a buy-side adviser role on American Tower Corporation’s $2.1 billion acquisition of a 15% stake in Indian tower operator Viom Networks.