Research

Research articles published by Hemindra Hazari.

It is Uday Kotak’s swan song year as chief executive officer of Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB), and the theme of the bank’s FY2023 annual report  is “Acceler@ting Change”. In line with this, the bank’s “strategy emphasises on building younger , diverse and future-fit talent at the Group.” Perhaps this...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. In a major scoop, ET Prime on June 9, 2021 revealed the contents of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)’s ongoing investigation into Indusind Bank’s October 2017 US$ 40 mn loan to CG Middle East FZE (CG ME), a step down subsidiary of CG Power...
In our experience companies adopt liberal accounting policies to cover up flagging fundamentals otherwise there is rarely a valid business reason.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Senior executives are rushing for the exit door at Aditya Birla Finance Ltd. (ABFL), the non-bank finance company (NBFC) subsidiary of Aditya Birla Capital (ABC), the holding company for all the financial services business of the Aditya Birla group. Since May 2021, at least five senior officials...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. The integrity of audits in private sector banks and non-bank financial companies (including housing finance) has received a major boost, while large global and domestic audit firms have been dealt a body blow by the Reserve Bank of India’s new  guidelines for the appointment of statutory auditors...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Many cases of mis-selling by ICICI Prudential Life (IPru Life) have been highlighted by this analyst since 2018 (also here and here). The company has responded by highlighting the high and improving persistency ratios (proportion of business that is retained from the business underwritten, measured in terms...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. The Mint newspaper broke a news story on February 15, 2022 exposing how, in June 2019, RBL Bank had disbursed a high-risk loan to Sintex-BAPL. Thereafter Sintex-BAPL lent the bulk of those funds to group company Sintex Industries which enabled it to repay a Rs 2.8 bn...
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...
It is extremely unfortunate that the regulatory agencies have till date not penalised any senior individual in the banks or the partners in the audit firms responsible for the huge divergence in NPAs in FY2016. The lack of punishment so far raises concerns of ‘regulatory capture’ by the private sector banks.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. On the eve of HDFC Bank’s 2QFY2020 results (October 19, 2019), an analysis of its profitability for the last 5 years reveals that, while its ROA marginally declined as credit costs increased, it was the leveraging of operating costs which compensated to maintain the bank’s excellent profitability....