Billionaire Banker Uday Kotak Hires Ashok Vaswani As New Kotak CEO

Kotak Mahindra Bank, an Indian lender, made an unusual decision by selecting Ashok Vaswani as its new CEO from outside the company. The bank’s board submitted the names of K.V.S Manian and Ashok Vaswani for consideration, and the Reserve Bank of India, which approves all senior bank appointments, chose Vaswani for the role. Vaswani will assume his position as CEO of Kotak on January 1, 2024.

Uday Kotak, the billionaire founder and former CEO, is the largest shareholder and still serves on the board of India’s fourth-largest private bank by assets. Many high-level executives were expecting K.V.S. Manian, a close ally of Kotak, to succeed interim CEO Dipak Gupta.

Uday Kotak is Kotak’s biggest shareholder, and holds over 514 million shares for a 25.87% stake in the company – currently valued at just under ₹894.7b. Looking at the external shareholders, Capital Research and Management Company owns around 134 million shares (6.79% stake), estimated to be worth around ₹234.7b, followed by Life Insurance Corporation of India, Asset Management Arm at 6.2%. SBI Funds Management Limited (3.82%) and Invesco Ltd. (2.95%) round out the top five Kotak shareholders.

Vaswani has a 35-year career and brings “significant executional experience” to his new role, according to the bank. Vaswani is the president of Pagaya, a US-Israeli artificial intelligence (AI) fintech, as well as a non-executive director of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).

He previously worked at Barclays for over 12 years in various senior leadership roles, beginning as CEO of cards, Europe in 2010. In 2016, he was appointed CEO of Barclays UK, where he oversaw the company’s retail and business banking operations, as well as its cards and wealth divisions. Later, he was CEO of the bank’s global consumer and payments division, and most recently, chief digital officer.

Prior to joining Barclays, Vaswani worked for Citi Group for eight years, beginning as a division executive in 1999 and ending as CEO, consumer bank, Asia Pacific in 2007.

That said, there are few similarities between Uday Kotak and Ashok Vaswani.

Both are perhaps the same age and alumni of Mumbai’s famous Sydenham College. They share their passion for cricket.

But as bankers will there be similarities?

Kotak Mahindra Bank
Market cap: $41.61
Kotak Mahindra Bank has total assets of ₹6,780.0B and total equity of ₹1,208.2B. Total deposits are ₹3,984.3B, and total loans are ₹3,591.1B earning a Net Interest Margin of 5.4%. It has insufficient allowance for bad loans, which are currently at 1.8% of total loans. Cash and short-term investments are ₹504.8B.

Kotak Mahindra Bank’s interim CEO is Dipak Gupta, appointed in Sep 2023, has a tenure of less than a year. Total yearly compensation is ₹54.36M, comprised of 50.5% salary and 49.5% bonuses, including company stock and options. directly owns 0.025% of the company’s shares, worth ₹852.09M. Dipak’s total compensation (US$654.85K) is below average for companies of similar size in the Indian market (US$1.20M).

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