u 32 u JANUARY 2-15, 2017 BUSINESS INDIA u THE MAGAZINE OF THE CORPORATE WORLD Cover Feature charm for most of India Inc’s leaders, who have, in a sense, grown up with the magazine. Over time, the environment has changed, technolo- gies have changed and even businesses them- selves have evolved, but Business India has continued to select its Businessman of the Year in the same spirit, upholding the highest stan- dards of fairness and transparency. This year, our panel was chaired by Ashwin Dani, vice-chairman, Asian Paints, who was named the Businessman of the Year in 2015. As per tradition, the immedi- ate past winner of the award is tasked with chairing the panel. Dani led a jury of eminent pan- elists, drawn from diverse busi- nesses and each a leader in his own right: Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India; Gaurav Dalmia, chair- man, Dalmia Group Holdings; Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, Titan; Nimesh Shah, managing I nstituted 34 years ago, the award honours an entrepreneur for demonstrating exem- plary business achievement over the past year. Was the entrepreneur a visionary? Had he built a business with a solid foundation and clear growth objectives? Was he unafraid to take big, bold decisions? Had he achieved resounding financial success? Did he wield industry influ- ence or have an impact, nationally? Did he dem- onstrate leadership qualities? Did he have the ability to inspire and motivate? And most impor- tantly, did he deliver results? To discuss all of this and more, a panel of accomplished executives gathered at the Oberoi Hotel in South Mumbai. Since 1982, when ITC’s Ajit Haskar was adjudged Business India’s first ever Businessman of the Year, we have carried on this tradition year after exciting year. The award holds a nostalgic th 35 2016 Out of the ordinary PANEL DISCUSSION Amidst the mayhem of Brexit, Trump and demonetisation, Business India brought together industry czars from across the country to select the Businessman of the Year 2016 SANJAY BORADE The Panel: (from left) Ajay Garg, Amit Tandon, Habil Khorakiwala, Ashwin Dani, Ashok Advani, Nimesh Shah, Uday Shankar, Gaurav Dalmia and Bhaskar Bhat
Transcript
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charm for most of india inc’s leaders, who have, in a sense, grown up with the magazine. over time, the environment has changed, technolo-gies have changed and even businesses them-selves have evolved, but Business India has continued to select its Businessman of the year in the same spirit, upholding the highest stan-dards of fairness and transparency.
this year, our panel was chaired by ashwin dani, vice-chairman, asian paints, who was named the Businessman of the year in 2015.
as per tradition, the immedi-ate past winner of the award is tasked with chairing the panel. dani led a jury of eminent pan-elists, drawn from diverse busi-nesses and each a leader in his own right: uday shankar, ceo, star india; gaurav dalmia, chair-man, dalmia group holdings; Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, titan; nimesh shah, managing
instituted 34 years ago, the award honours an entrepreneur for demonstrating exem-plary business achievement over the past year. was the entrepreneur a visionary? had
he built a business with a solid foundation and clear growth objectives? was he unafraid to take big, bold decisions? had he achieved resounding financial success? did he wield industry influ-ence or have an impact, nationally? did he dem-onstrate leadership qualities? did he have the ability to inspire and motivate? and most impor-tantly, did he deliver results? to discuss all of this and more, a panel of accomplished executives gathered at the oberoi hotel in south mumbai.
since 1982, when itc’s ajit haskar was adjudged Business India’s first ever Businessman of the year, we have carried on this tradition year after exciting year. the award holds a nostalgic
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Out of the ordinary
PA N E L D I S C U S S I O N
Amidst the mayhem of Brexit, Trump and demonetisation, Business India brought together industry czars from across the country to select the Businessman of the Year 2016
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The Panel: (from left) Ajay Garg, Amit Tandon, Habil Khorakiwala,
Busi n e ss i n di a u the m aga zi n e of the cor por ate wor ld Cover Feature
putting ‘the spotlight of social acceptance’ on the products he sells. a third player in the fmcg space, was commended for the sheer size of the empire he had built, both organically and through a slew of timely acquisitions. he is a well-respected leader, lauded for his ethics and governance, but the panel felt that no major innovation had come from his company in a while.
a first generation entrepreneur in the health-care sector was briefly considered. he is a vision-ary who built a pharma empire, but has now diversified into a number of businesses. as a result, the panelists felt that the company’s focus was unclear. two commodity players featured in the list of contenders for the award. But the panel unanimously agreed that neither had done any-thing noteworthy over the past year. moreover, they were highly leveraged businesses.
there were three contenders from the auto-mobile sector. one has made an impact not only in india but also globally; the second is more india-focussed, while the third operates in a niche area. the latter was quickly eliminated on the grounds that his impact was limited. the debate therefore ran its course between the first two players. of these, one was eliminated on the grounds of ‘strategic blunders’ that the leader
had committed in entering and exiting certain businesses.
this left five players in the fray. three of them – the automobile sector player; a self-made media mogul, who has built an impressive business over the years; and a player in the aviation sector, who was delivering outstanding business results on the back of innovation, quality and customer focus – went out of reckoning soon. an engaging debate ensued over the fourth, a ‘new economy’ entrepre-neur, who has risen to poster-boy status in the last month. his brand had deeply penetrated into the indian psyche, he had tremendous national impact and his rags-to-riches story was inspiring. however, it was felt that it would be wise to wait and see how his pioneering efforts would pan out over the longer term.
in the end, it was the turn of the fifth to soak in the limelight: a role model in the financial services sector, who was lauded not only for his extraordinary acumen and risk management abilities, but also for building a brand that inspired trust. Uday Kotak, executive vice-chairman & managing director, Kotak mahindra Bank, has been elected our Businessman of the year 2016.
director & ceo, icici prudential asset manage-ment; habil Khorakiwala, chairman, wockhardt group; and ajay garg, founder and managing director, equirus capital.
interestingly, again, as per Business India tra-dition, no panel member is ever selected a sec-ond time. a past winner is also not considered for the award again, making the jury’s task that much more challenging.
ashok advani, publisher, Business India, set the tone by introducing the panel members to the selection process. he informed them that the dossier of potential contenders, drawn up by the Business India team, was by way of recom-mendation only. the panel was free to consider other potential contenders as they deemed fit. he further clarified that, while the selection pro-ceedings would be reported, the names of the contenders would be kept confidential, as would the ensuing discussions. the panelists could, therefore, voice their opinions freely, without fear of comments being attributed to them.
advani also added that the criteria for selec-tion, as listed by Business India, were enablers. the panel was at liberty to give weightage to these or add other criteria. the panel was also urged to go beyond financial metrics and seek out a visionary, who had the integrity, influence and acumen to be the Business-man of the year 2016.
with this roadmap in place, dani kicked off the discussions. at the outset, two first-generation
e-commerce entrepreneurs were elimi-nated. competition was snapping at their heels and their losses were mounting. as a result, the panelists felt that neither had been able to maintain their leadership positions. moreover, one panelist pon-dered over the idea of ‘value creation’ ver-sus ‘valuation’. while the e-commerce players in question were benefiting con-sumers with their services and creating a lasting national impact, their sky-high valuations were not grounded in solid, sustainable revenue models.
another acute businessperson – who has built a mega-empire in the fmcg sec-tor on the back of low prices and a strong distribution model – was eliminated because of his divisive attacks on the com-petition. he, therefore, didn’t qualify as a youth icon, despite his business success. another leader in the fmcg space has built an impressive, professionally run company that is among the largest in terms of mar-ket cap. however, some panelists felt that by endorsing him, Business India would be
SELECTION CrITErIAFinancial performance of the company/group in the
past few years
Track record in generating shareholder wealth/value
Growth of the company/group either by expansion, acquisitions, mergers or joint ventures
The ability of the company/group to succeed in a competitive
environment
Commitment to best practices in corporate
governance
Contribution to employee welfare and development
of people
Individual’s influence on his peers and
on society
Individual’s commitment to corporate integrity
and building an ethical organisation
The ability to make a paradigm shift in the business
Demonstrated leadership qualities
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the money whisperer
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the money whisperer
Uday Kotak is both India’s first banker and businessman
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Back in the day when uday Kotak was cap-tain of the school team, cricket practice sessions came with a harsh dose of perfor-mance pressure. coach ramakant achrekar, who later tutored ace batsman sachin ten-dulkar too, would summon the best bowler
on the team and order him to “knock off his [Kotak’s] middle stump, i challenge you”.
indian banking is rapidly changing, with new finan-cial intermediaries in the business – mobile wallets, pay-ments banks and small finance banks. not to miss the newly aggressive scheduled commercial banks like rbl, idfc and Bandhan. can more competition add that much more pressure on any incumbent bank’s margins?
Kotak remains unfazed. year 2016 will go down as a tough year for indian banking, but there is little indica-tion of any stress at his bank. in february Kotak mahi-ndra Bank (kmb) acquired a 20 per cent stake in a joint venture payments bank with telecom player Bharti air-tel for R98 crore. in august it set up an innovation lab in Bengaluru to tap new technologies that could impact its future operations.
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in september it acquired bss micro-finance and its base of 217,000 cus-tomers for R139.2 crore. in november, two days after specified bank notes were demonetised by the govern-ment, kmb received approval to open its first overseas branch at the dubai international financial centre.
perched at the top of the kmb’s headquarters in mumbai’s Bandra Kurla complex, uday Kotak, 57, has mastered the art of taking contrar-ian calls when he can see value in a deal. in July 2014, amidst a brewing mess at financial technologies, the bank picked up a 15 per cent stake in the multi commodity exchange at
R600 a share – making kmb the larg-est shareholder in the company. last fortnight, in a bearish market, mcx shares traded at R1,218 apiece.
ing Vysya Bank, which kmb acquired in november 2014, had been up for sale much earlier too. But Kotak held onto his cards and closed in on the deal only when it came at a price that he was comfortable at.
expensive perhaps, because of a pension liability that hadn’t been fully accounted for earlier. But the acquisition gave Kotak a decisive spread across the south of india. “the calculation was simple,” says Kotak. “when time and speed are of the essence, it is a time-to-make versus the opportunity-to-buy decision,” he adds.
Kotak also has the knack of looking for value in a deal – a fine balance between risk and reward. this keen eye for val-uation is topped by the con-servatism of a promoter that brings “skin into the game”.
kmb closed financial year 2015-16 with total assets of
R240,804 crore against a net profit of R3,431 crore. gross non-performing assets are at 2.1 per cent of total advances,
against a provision coverage ratio of 63.68 per cent. the capital adequacy ratio is a healthy 16.3 per cent, of which a chunk is common equity.
“i look up to him as a very suc-cessful businessman who has grown to great heights,” says cyril shroff, managing partner, cyril amarchand mangaldas, a close friend who says Kotak is sometimes even a mentor.
“he is one of the sharpest finan-cial minds i have encountered,” says Janmejaya sinha, chairman, Boston consulting group, asia pacific. “he is also a great people leader and his core team has been with him from the start. he is a very worthy recipi-ent of this award.”
But wealth creation has been a consequence of Kotak’s astute business acumen. the banking
business, for instance, is well capit-alised and is backed by a diverse set of long-term investors. so when the next valuable opportunity arrives, Kotak can be ready for it.
wealth creation has taken place also because there are satisfied cus-tomers within a process-oriented value system, serviced by a key team that has stuck together right from the start.
dipak gupta, joint managing director, has been with the firm for over 24 years. c. Jayaram, who retired this year and is on the board of kmb, has been with the firm for 26 years.
shivaji dam, among the first employees at Kotak, has been with the firm for over three decades. he was the first managing director of Kotak life insurance and has been managing trustee of Kotak education
foundation, since it was founded in 2005-06.
K.V.s. manian, who heads corpo-rate and investment banking, joined the group in 1995 and played a key role in the conversion of the nbfc into a bank. shanti ekambaram, president consumer banking, joined the firm in 1994 having worked with canada’s Bank of nova scotia.
Jaimin Bhatt, president and group cfo has been with the firm for two decades, having worked earlier with the godrej group as manager, proj-ect finance. narayan s.a. joined the group in 1991 as an assistant vice-president (finance) and now oversees commercial banking.
the markets admire Kotak for the enormous wealth creation that has taken place at the bank over the years. “he is risk conscious and at the same time business oriented,
constantly looking for risk adjusted returns,” says dipak gupta, joint managing direc-tor, who has worked with Kotak for more than two decades.
to understand this better, go back to 1983 when Kotak identified his first opportunity around bill discounting – rais-ing funds from friends, who earned only 6 per cent interest on their bank deposits. nelco, a tata company, on the other hand, would raise working
October 15, 2000
“We bankers are not masters of the universe. We are out there to serve customers and to serve people”
Busi n e ss i n di a u the m aga zi n e of the cor por ate wor ld Cover Feature
Banking in India is going through massive changes. Low value transactions
are going digital, led by mobile wallet companies and fol-lowed by the incumbent banks themselves.
But are there too many play-ers in the market today, like there were nbfcs in the 1990s? Can an episode like that repeat itself? “The one thing I have learnt,” says Kotak, “is never say never.”
There is a non-performing assets hangover for instance, especially in public sector bank-ing, which has not yet been fully accounted for. “The financial system has had a habit for too long, to evergreen loans to cus-tomers. Recognition of the truth is an extremely important step to move forward,” he says.
According to Kotak, the total amount of stress in the banking system is about 18 per cent of the loan book of which about 12 per cent is recognised. The loss ratio will be 60 per cent of 18 per cent, which is about 10 per cent of total lending. “What has been provided so far is about 4-5 per cent,” he adds.
The public sector banks will, of course, sort out of their mess eventually, backed as they are by government and taxpayer money. But as banking as a mar-ket opens to new competition, there are bound to be casualties.
Barring co-operative, banks in India aren’t allowed to fail but the future can be different. “As you open barriers to entry, you cannot have a situation where there is no exit,” says Kotak. “As financial services get more com-petitive with easier barriers to entry, we should be more liberal on mergers and mortality.”
More recently, the Indian banking system has had to work under enormous pressure to ful-fil a government-led demoneti-sation of currency objective. The
return of notes of denomination 500 and 1,000, has led to a sud-den surge in liquidity. But provid-ing for loss assets has prevented Indian banks from lowering the cost of a loan to consumers.
Many banks will have booked treasury gains this quarter, with the yield on government bonds having fallen due to a sudden surge in demand. But the yield is inching up again, after the US Federal Reserve increased its interest rates. “A business needs to be backed by sustainable fran-chise rather than hit and run,” says Kotak.
Demonetisation itself has huge medium-term benefits for the economy, he says. “This is the opportunity to change cul-ture, because evading taxes cannot be acceptable social behaviour. It is the opportunity to move to a less cash economy, because the cost of handling cash is very high. And it gives a big fillip to technology and digi-tal, which goes with the philoso-phy of increasing intermediation efficiency.”
A more digital economy is also likely to transform the way banking is done. “If our aspira-tion was 5,000 branches at one point in time, we no longer need to rush to 5,000 branches in a hurry. Deposit gathering can happen through digital means. If there is less cash, that again reduces the need for physical infrastructure,” he adds.
But shouldn’t an upheaval in favour of digital have come through a blockchain-like tech-nology, a ledger on which records cannot be deleted, with not just huge implications for tax purposes but also the poten-tial to fully digitise currency? “Policy makers have to get fully comfortable with the blockchain measure of accounting. It could be something down the road,” he says. u
Never say never
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Uday Kotak grew up in a large traditional Hindu family of 60
members, who shared a sin-gle kitchen. He did his school-ing at Hindi Vidya Bhawan at Marine Lines because it was “an English medium school with Indian values”.
Kotak’s father Suresh, and uncles, ran a cotton com-modity trading business back then. Even today, his father is chairman of Kotak and Co, Kotak Chemicals, Kotak Ginning and Pressing and of the Ahmedabad Cotton Exchange.
During the early years, Kotak tried blending in with the family business while recovering from a critical injury – caused while play-ing field cricket. But since being young in a traditional family would subject him to
perpetual, hierarchical pres-sure, Kotak branched out on his own instead. When he raised money for his business, it was more friends than fam-ily that participated.
After studying at Syden-ham College, he completed a management course at Jam-nalal Bajaj University and had the option to join Hindustan Unilever where he had com-pleted an internship, but with a mathematical mind and an eye for numbers – and permission from wife Pal-lavi – Kotak chose a career in finance instead.
Through his father, Kotak met Mukul Harkisandas and his brother Pradeep, who ran ficom back in the day, and through Pradeep he met Sid-ney Pinto, a banker, who rec-ommended that Kotak get into bill discounting.
On his first trip to New York in May 1992 to meet with soon-to-be joint venture part-ner Goldman Sachs, Kotak was shocked to see huge buildings run by bankers and financiers like jpMorgan, Mor-gan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch.
India, and by and large the whole of Asia, had no such name on their lists. There was no Indian financial institu-tion started by family names that had a name overseas, or at the very least grown to be world class.
Of all the businesses Kotak has set up, the one that he considers most crucial is a step into banking. “The core of our business is concen-trated India, diversified finan-cial. But if you want to be a concentrated India player you must have customer-
centricity. And the platform which gives the highest cus-tomer-centricity is a banking platform,” he says.
But the horizon for what is considered traditional finan-cial services has started to get wider and more broadly defined. “I do not consider myself a banker or an invest-ment banker. I see myself as someone who is increasing efficiency in financial inter-mediation,” says Kotak.
One of his biggest strengths is the team that stuck by him right through the early days to date. “It was a great time for professionals to be involved with an entity which was offering a range of services,” says C. Jayaram. Many of them are broadly similar in age to Kotak, and he gave them space to perform.
“You want to work with a person who is right up there professionally and individu-ally. Uday is a great guy to
The name counts
capital finance at 17 per cent interest. to nelco, Kotak offered funding at 16 per cent interest and from friends he gathered deposits at 12 per cent.
“the money had to come into the account before the outgoing cheque was issued. the cheque would take 24-48 hours to clear, and within that time i would make sure that the refi-nancing would take place,” he says. zero capital invested gave Kotak his first business.
for two years Kotak worked through an arm of his father suresh Kotak’s commodity trading busi-ness, and in 1985 set up Kotak capital
management. Bill discounting took Kotak to steel company mahindra ugine, where he met for the first time with m&m’s anand mahin-dra. the relationship developed into a partnership when Kotak offered mahindra a stake, and renamed the company Kotak mahindra finance.
the mahindra name was better known back then, but Kotak had to establish his own. for the first time he scrambled in search of investors to raise R30 lakh as capital. mahi-ndra brought in R4.5 lakh while Kotak invested about R14 lakh. it took six months to raise the bal-ance R10-odd lakh.
the mahindras, who started out as promoters of kmb, remain largely aloof from the day to day running of the bank. anand mahindra’s wife anuradha is the only signifi-cant shareholder in kmb with a 1.12 per cent stake, and that too falls in the public shareholder category.
in 1989 Kotak sensed his sec-ond opportunity. only one foreign
bank, citi, offered loans to buy cars back then – and charged 13 per cent flat interest. even if the balance low-ered, the interest rate remained 13 per cent – taking the internal rate of return to as much as 30 per cent. But
March 2, 2003
“If our aspiration was 5,000 branches at one point in time, we no longer need to rush to 5,000 branches in a hurry”
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work with. He’s open to discussion and doesn’t mind people having contrary opinions,” he adds.
Apart from the bank, and its various invest-ments, Kotak also owns a controlling stake in the Ahmedabad Cotton Exchange and a non-fi-nancial investment orig-inally part of Kotak now majority owned person-ally in newspaper Busi-ness Standard.
Looking back, Kotak has no regrets. Though an important lesson between 2003 and 2008, he says, is that the bank could have grown much faster. His pursuit is to build a customer franchise and a sustainable brand. “If what you create does not outlive you, then you have failed,” he says. “That is the driving purpose, how do you create
a world class institution that lives through generations.”
Much of the bank’s corpo-rate social responsibility ini-tiatives are routed through the Kotak Education Foun-dation which works around
providing education to the under-privileged. Younger son Dhawal has been work-ing passionately in this space, providing mid-day meals to 4,000 children – with a dream to take it up to a million.
“We have cho-sen education for the under-privileged as the core of what we do for social good,” says Kotak. “As a firm, and our family in due course, we will essen-tially do significant amounts of work in the area of under-privileged with some focus on education. But we are open to areas outside educa-tion also,” he adds.
Elder son Jai will complete his masters in business adminis-tration from Harvard University in May 2017. He interned
at both Kotak and Goldman Sachs earlier, but has yet to make up his mind about join-ing Kotak. “I think he’ll come back,” says Kotak. “But it is up to him. He has to figure it out.” u
to get a maruti car back then meant having to suffer a waiting period of at least six months. so Kotak booked 5,000 cars and offered them to cus-tomers instantly – as long as they took the loan from him – at the same
13 per cent interest.in the same year Kotak acquired
hl-ficom, a well-known name in merchant banking circles back then but which had run into difficult times. run by mukul harkisandas and the dalal family the firm had a broking, distribution, investment banking and deposit gathering busi-ness. Kotak also diversified into leas-ing and hire purchase broking, as a tax cover to bill discounting.
By the early 1990s there was no stopping Kotak mahindra finance. it became the largest
bill discounting firm in the coun-try. aggressively gaining market share in a manner that could give some of today’s start-ups a run for their money.
at a euromoney conference in 1992, Kotak tied up with american investment banking firm goldman sachs. he bought a stock broking card when the controller of capi-tal issuances gave up control of the
price at which companies could issue shares. he also picked up a 10 per cent stake in Bank of madura which also gave his company a board seat on the bank. when Kotak mahindra finance listed on the stock markets in 1992 a R10 face value share sold at a premium of R1,300.
the indian stock market was “like a well back then, inward looking,” says Kotak. “we knew that the capi-tal markets would develop. we didn’t know much about the business, so we
July 12, 2011
“The financial system has had a habit for
too long, to evergreen loans to customers.
Recognition of the truth is an extremely important
step to move forward”
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went out in search and found gold-man sachs.” a basic partnership to match global investors with indian issuers of american depository and global depository receipts turned into a joint venture for investment banking and stock broking.
another joint venture with ford
– which was initiated through the m&m network – taught Kotak how retail works. “a lot of our retail cul-ture came out of our joint venture with ford credit. how a R100 ser-vice charge is extremely important,” he adds.
on any long journey, however, things do go wrong. and sometimes they can go horribly wrong. the first disaster struck in 1992 after the har-shad mehta securities scandal, when the rbi stopped banks from redis-counting bills of exchange. a line which used to be more than 75 per cent of Kotak’s profits evaporated overnight. the entire business had to be remodelled within a year.
disaster struck again in 1997, with the asian financial crisis, but this time Kotak was better prepared. the relationship with goldman sachs had bloomed into a joint venture in the early 1990s; and car-maker ford
had picked up a stake in Kotak’s vehi-cle financing business around the same time.
But there were hints of the coming storm, with
the rbi relentlessly raising interest rates. in spite of having both gold-man sachs and ford as partners and a well-capitalised business, before the crisis could take place Kotak went against the tide and halved lending to R800 crore.
“most people thought we were stupid,” says Kotak, even as his share price shrunk to R16. it was a trial by fire that year and shareholders lost money. But at the end of it, out of 4,000 non-banking financial services businesses in india in 1997, only 20 survived.
at that time goldman sachs decided to deepen its india presence and offered to buy Kotak out. it was also a developing trend back then: key rival investment banking firms were dsp financial and jm financial. dsp’s promoters had tied up with merrill lynch and jm financial had tied up with morgan stanley. the amounts paid were large and commer-cial terms tempting.
Kotak drew the line and bought out goldman sachs instead. “in his mind there was never
any question of selling out, irrespec-tive of the price at which it could happen,” says c. Jayaram, a non-in-dependent director at the bank who has been with Kotak for 26 years.
there was a friendly parting of ways because retaining control was crucial for Kotak to build the “finan-cial services architecture” he had aspired to build. “there still isn’t a formula how two people can own 51 per cent each,” says Kotak. the joint venture with ford came to an end too, because it would finance more cars than that of ford, and the for-eign partner did not want to support non-ford products and dealers.
these setbacks, however, did not stop Kotak as he continued to expand the business. in 1998 he launched an asset management business, Kotak mahindra asset management; and
in year 2000 a foray into insur-ance along with south afri-
ca’s old mutual. in 2001 Kotak applied for a banking licence, clear in his mind
about its importance after the crisis.
By then the relation-ship with Bank of madura,
a possible acquisition tar-get, had run its course. “we were never getting
the brand,” says Kotak. “it would also have been two
brands. so, a clean neat licence was preferred.” Kotak sold the
company’s shareholding in Bank of madura in 2001, and the latter was
acquired by icici Bank in the same year. in 2002 Kotak received permis-sion from the rbi to convert his own nbfc into a bank.
there has been no looking back since. when Kotak stepped into banking some of his ex-investment banker friends asked him why he was getting into a low return on equity business.
yet the capital value created has been mind-boggling. with a full market capitalisation of R132,000 crore and with shares trading at a price to book value of 3.93, kmb is valued almost as much as some of its
