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Research articles published by Hemindra Hazari.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Axis Bank recently diminished the authority of its Chief Risk Officer (CRO) by taking corporate credit risk assessment away from him and giving it to the Chief Credit Officer. Cyril Anand, President and Chief Risk Officer (CRO), Axis Bank, has been ‘retired’ early, and the bank has...
Even in a rowdy game of soccer, two yellow cards result in dismissal from the field of play. Indian banking, though, adheres to lower standards. For two consecutive years, Axis Bank has been exposed by the regulator for mis-reporting in its financial statements; yet the bank’s board of directors...
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 have joined the...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. The credit rating agency, ICRA (an affiliate of Moody’s) has finally sacked Naresh Takkar, its chief executive officer (CEO).  This appears to be a belated response to pressure from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the capital markets regulator. Earlier, following an anonymous complaint to SEBI, reportedly...
After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made clear to the board of Axis Bank that it should reconsider its decision to grant the present Chief Executive Officer (CEO) a fourth term, one would have expected the board to have seen the light. But no, shockingly, the board has...
The appalling record of incompetence, and likely worse, by India’s credit rating agencies (CRAs) continues to lengthen. The latest instance is the double default of commercial debt obligations (on June 27 and July 1, 2019) by Cox and Kings, a tour and travels services company. In this case the...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. In the SBI-led bail-out of Yes Bank assisted by private sector entities, HDFC Bank, the largest private sector bank, is notably absent, as is Indusind Bank. Stranger still, much smaller banks like Bandhan Bank, Federal Bank and IDFC First have decided to come to the rescue of...
A Kotak family entity, Infina Finance Private Ltd. (Infina), purchased electoral bonds totalling Rs 1.3 billion – which is more than twice the amount disclosed by the State Bank of India (SBI) to the Election Commission of India (ECI) during FY2019 to FY2022. In FY2020, the company purchased Rs 760...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. On June 14, 2019, Tech Mahindra joined the ranks of Tata Global Beverages, Ambuja Cement and Dr Reddy’s in appointing Shikha Sharma as an independent director. Private equity firm KKR had also appointed Sharma as an adviser for their alternative investments. The irony of publicly-owned and listed...
Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) sent the following response to this analyst’s article, “KMB Talks of “Highest Standards of Corporate Governance”, But Avoids Telling Shareholders about Adverse SEBI Orders against Executive Director”  (dated August 3, 2022; it was later released to the general public as well, on grounds of public...