“This partnership with Canara Bank is more of an intellectual relationship and knowledge sharing rather than financial investment. We are a profitable rating agency and are in no great need of funds. We are looking at building new rating models, offer training and offer new products among others,” Vivek Kulkarni, managing director, Brickwork Ratings, told Business Standard.
Kulkarni and his co-founder D Ravishankar, former CFO of CRISIL, together divested 10 per cent of their stake to Canara Bank. The Bank has acquired 5,06,667 shares at an undisclosed sum in Brickwork Ratings. Both of them would collaborate in various activities related to Banking and Credit Rating, he said.
Post this transaction, Kulkarni’s stake will come down to 65 per cent, while the balance 25 per cent is held between Ravi Shankar, the co-founder of Brickwork Ratings and N Balasubramanian, who was roped in recently.
Both will work jointly in the areas of risk management, training, research, financial inclusion, credit rating models, events and conferences, the Bank said in a statement.
Started in 2007, Brickwork Ratings has emerged as the fifth largest credit rating company in India. Presently, Brickwork Ratings offers credit rating service for bank loans, NCD and SMEs. It has presence in Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and 40 other cities.
In the NCD market, it has gained 20 per cent market share and has rated some of the top companies like Tata Group, Reliance and some top banks. Its share in the bank loans segment is negligible, as it has recently started offering rating service. In the SME segment, Brickwork has rated over 800 companies and occupies second position after CRISIL, Kulkarni said.
“With new funds from Canara Bank, we wish to strengthen our offerings in the training segment. We have launched a one-year pure finance course and will soon introduce grading of hospitals mainly in the area of patient safety,” he said.
Both Kulkarni and Ravishankar are also engaged in teaching. Kulkarni is a visiting faculty for finance at the Indian Institute of Science, while Ravishankar is a visiting faculty at Great Lakes Institute of Management. “Our vision is to offer complete financial literacy and build better and sharper rating models,” Kulkarni added.