Global banks lord over Deal Street

MUMBAI: Hemendra Kothari did the Raasi Cements deal.’ ‘Nimesh Kampani did the Sesa Goa deal.’ ‘Uday Kotak did the BSE deal.’ That’s how mergers
and acquisition (M&A) deals used to be discussed in India till recently. But this is changing. Now it is institutions such as JPMorgan, Stanchart or Deutsche, to consider three banks active in the Indian market, which do deals. Rainmakers of the past three decades, the home-grown three Ks who moved thousands of crores with financial acumen and relationships built hand holding businesses and sweet-talking over decades, are giving way to institutions which employ scores of Harvard, MIT and IIM-educated brains and have loads of money. “There has been a sea-change over the years,” says Hemendra Kothari, boss of DSP who was the first to form a joint venture with an overseas investment banker, Merrill Lynch, in 1994. “Ideas, suggestions and relationships were very important