India core to our operations: TV Raghunath, Kotak Mahindra Capital

MUMBAI: "India is not just part of our global strategy. It's core to our operations. We will be focusing on deals by India, of India," says TV Raghunath or just "TV" for friends, veteran investment banker and the new MD & CEO of Kotak Mahindra Capital. Corporate and investment banking has always been a big pillar for the bank. "It's our differentiator. But we are getting into a new phase of building on the institutional platform. This is Kotak Mahindra Investment Banking 3.0."

So if the earlier avatars included leveraging the Goldman Sachs franchise to build a platform and then surviving the split, Raghunath now is keen to position his 50 member strong team as a premium house that fancies both its depth of coverage and access to the India Inc's boardrooms. "But we are not building our business model on only bulge bracket deals. As a full-service bank, we should be able to handle inbound interest for companies that are even based in Coimbatore. And I think our team is best trained to offer localised products," he adds.

A part of Uday Kotak's core team, Raghunath has been associated with investment banking since 1998, when he set up the fledgling operations with just three members. But in the recent past, he branched out for a more strategic role and has been instrumental for the group's entry in the commodity exchange business and for the investment by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation of Japan in the bank.