The guest coordinators at leading television channels are in a fix. On the Budget day coming Monday, many of the high profile CEOs they were aiming to get into their studios for a post-Budget analysis may give them a miss. There is a dinner date in Mumbai that many of these CEOs would hate to miss out on.
Even as the finance minister reads out his Budget speech in Parliament, Vikram Pandit, the India-born CEO of Citigroup, will be touching down in the country’s financial capital for his first home visit since he took over the corner office in 399 Park Avenue, New York, in 2007.
Buffeted by the crisis at Citigroup, Pandit has become a lightning rod for critics of the bank. But the Citi under him has braved the storm and has even repaid $20 billion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) loans to the US government last December. Clearly, it is time to step on the growth pedal once again.
It is especially delicate out here. Pandit has to first soothe nerves and sentiments of irate wealth management clients, who were rocked by one of the most high profile blue collar financial frauds of recent times. Citi has already pegged India to emerge as its biggest market by 2050.
Even though Citi won’t confirm it, sources said equally high on Pandit’s networking agenda would be a small private dinner on the Budget day with a motley group of powerful corporate personalities and clients of the bank at Mumbai’s Trident hotel. The next morning will see more business meetings with blue-chip clients, maybe even a power lunch, to be followed by a gala cocktail and dinner at the Taj for a much bigger group.
But India is not just on Pandit’s radar. Around the same time, the who’s who of global banking will be trooping into New Delhi to attend the first financial sector conclave to be organised in the country by the premier financial sector think-tank, Institute of International Finance (IIF).
From Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann to his counterpart from London, HSBC Group Chairman Douglas Flint, Credit Suisse Vice Chairman and Director Urs Rohner, Scotiabank’s Rick Waugh, Bank of New York Mellon Chairman and CEO Robert P Kelly and UBS Group Operating Officer Ulrich Korner, it is going to be a power packed ‘Spring Membership Meeting’ of bankers and IIF members in the Capital, right after the Budget. Pandit too will be there, addressing a keynote session along with Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani.
The Indian government, along with the country’s premier banks, ICICI Bank and SBI, will also be partnering IIF for the two-day summit. So, expect the prime minister’s brain trusts — PM’s Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, his colleague Saumitra Chaudhuri, Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao and his deputy Subir Gokarn or even the core Budget team, from the finance minister himself to Chief Economic Adviser Kaushik Basu or Financial Services Secretary R Gopalan, to hobnob with the big boys of global banking.
“It is a privilege for India to host such a highly respected forum, which always throws up a lot of intellectual capital. And this is yet another data point to showcase that India is becoming strategic for a lot of global corporations, including banks,” said Deutsche Bank’s India CEO Gunit Chadha.
A former economic advisor to the FM, who did not want to be identified, added: “It is just a coincidence that it will happen right after the Budget. Don’t read too much into that. During the recent financial crisis, India and other developing countries had asked for greater coordination in the global financials markets. Such events help to take that agenda forward.” The presence of US Under Secretary for International Affairs Lael Brainard will, therefore, only help matters.
