Kotak Mahindra Bank has announced that Ashok Vaswani will succeed founder Uday Kotak as the chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) of the private lender. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India had given its nod to Vaswani’s appointment. Besides, the private sector lender also released its second quarter earnings report, which showed that its profit grew 24% year-on-year on the back of improvement in net interest income and lower bad loans.
Following the Q2 report, Kotak Mahindra Bank shares opened marginally higher at ₹1,772 against Friday’s closing price of ₹1,769.55 on the BSE. Paring opening gains, the banking heavyweight declined as much as 2.65% to hit a low of ₹1,722.50, while the market capitalisation dipped to ₹3.44 lakh crore.
The shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank trade 16.5% lower than its 52-week high and nearly 5% higher than its 52-week low level. The counter touched its 52-week high level of ₹2,063 on May 31, 2023 and its 52-week low of ₹1,644.20 on March 14, 2023.
Kotak Mahindra Bank released its September quarter earnings on Saturday, registering a 24% growth in its standalone net profit to ₹3,191 crore as compared to ₹2,581 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year.
Its total income climbed to ₹13,507 crore against ₹9,925 crore in the year-ago quarter, reporting a growth of 36%.
The net interest income (NII) rose 23% to ₹6,297 crore from ₹5,099 crore in the same period last year. The net interest margin stood at 5.22% versus 5.17% in the year ago period.
On the assets quality front, the bank saw improvement, with gross non-performing assets dipping to 1.72% of gross advances in Q2 FY24 compared to 2.08% a year ago. In a similar trend, the net NPAs fell to 0.37% from 0.55% in the same quarter a year ago.
Ashok Vaswani appointed as MD & CEO
In a separate filing, Kotak Mahindra Bank informed exchanges that it has appointed international banker Ashok Vaswani as MD & CEO for a period of three years. Vaswani, who initially worked at Citigroup and more recently, at Barclays, has more than three-and-half decades of experience in building and growing global businesses at scale and leveraging forward leaning technology.
Uday Kotak, Founder and Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank said “I am delighted that the RBI has approved our recommendation, Ashok Vaswani, as the next MD & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank. Ashok is a word class leader and banker with digital and customer focus. I am proud that we bring a “Global Indian” home to build Kotak and India of tomorrow.”
Ashok was CEO of Barclays Bank, U.K. and subsequently CEO of their Global Consumer, Private, Corporate and Payments businesses and Member of the Group Executive Committee. Earlier, Ashok was CEO Citigroup Asia Pacific and Member of the Citigroup Global Operating & Management Committees. He also built and ran various country and regional businesses across geographies.
Currently, he is President of Pagaya Technologies Ltd - a U.S.-Israeli AI Fintech. He is also on the board of the London Stock Exchange Group, the SP Jain Institute of Global Management, U.K. and supports various philanthropic organisations, including Pratham, and Lend-A-Hand.
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