Articles

Retail-focused new private sector banks, the darlings of the capital market, are facing the ire of the banking regulator. Nearly two months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) compelled HDFC Bank to classify a large account as non-performing, thus qualifying the blue-blooded bank for ‘divergence’ (from RBI findings), comes news that...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. It was unfortunate that HDFC Bank decided to provide selective disclosure at a conference call  hosted by Jefferies. Only 63 institutional investors participated on the evening of December 9, 2020, where the bank publicly disclosed what went wrong at its recent digital outages. More importantly,...

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. The ET Prime 3-part series based on the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) show cause notices to Standard Chartered Bank, Indusind Bank  and Aditya Birla Finance highlighted the manner in which these institutions allegedly ‘evergreened’ their exposure and shifted their loans from the...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. The savage mauling of Indusind Bank’s share price in the last year, and especially in the last month, is a reflection of the unravelling of the bank’s high-risk asset and fee growth strategy.  A bank which use to trade at 5x P/BV is currently reduced...

Even though the government has intervened and installed a new board, the IL&FS saga continues with no resolution in immediate sight. Daily reports of defaults of IL&FS group companies are heightening concerns in the financial market. This is happening in the back drop of the rupee in free fall,...

In our experience companies adopt liberal accounting policies to cover up flagging fundamentals otherwise there is rarely a valid business reason.

Leadership is unravelling at Yes Bank and the stock is tanking. In the dark hours of November 14, the bank announced the immediate resignations of Ashok Chawla, its non-executive, independent chairman, and Vasant Gujarathi, an independent director and head of its important audit committee.  The directors of Yes Bank appear to...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. In comparing a company’s stand-alone expenses with its consolidated accounts, it is highly unusual for the consolidated numbers to be lower than the stand-alone numbers. But what has gone unnoticed for some years in HDFC Bank is that its stand-alone ‘other operating expenses’ has been...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Indusind Bank shareholders are paying a heavy price for senior executive-level reorganisation in Bharat Financial Inclusion (BFI), which backfired as disgruntled BFI seniors blew the whistle on alleged evergreening. Meanwhile the corporate division of the bank has being undergoing a similar drastic reorganisation.