Few business leaders in Asia have done a more impressive job in recent years in steering around pandemics, surging interest rates and messy geopolitics than Sandeep Bakhshi, ICICI Bank’s chief executive.
After his predecessor resigned in 2018 over allegations of corporate governance violations, Bakhshi was kept busy righting the ship – and then Covid-19 hit in 2020. Key among the metrics showing that Bakhshi’s handiwork has gained traction: ICICI’s more than 140 capital markets transactions since April 2020 totalling $64.2 billion.
Of the deals that ICICI has led, upwards of 56 have been initial public offerings, follow-on public offers, real estate investment trusts and infrastructure investment trusts. As Bakhshi puts it, ICICI plays a leading role in at least every second IPO hitting the market in India.
Bakhshi’s team credits this success to the bank’s strong research capabilities, vast institutional reach and large number of investment bankers boasting 30-plus years of experience in capitals around the world. ICICI’s institutional equities team is among India’s most established and competitive.
The bank takes great care to maintain its enviable status as the largest IPO retail broker, with a customer base of more than 8.4 million. ICICI also has an unrivalled roster of private wealth clients across the group.
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