Pushed to the wall, Kochhar finally throws in the towel, quits ICICI Bank

“It’s for others to decide my achievements,” Chanda Kochhar, former managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Bank, said in an interview last year. She didn’t know it then but those words couldn’t have been more prescient.

Even as her stated objective might have been to build a sustainable growth model for her bank, the past five months have put Kochhar in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons such as allegations of conflict of interest and quid pro quo in extending loans to Videocon Industries, which had funded NuPower Renewables, the firm of her husband, Deepak Kochhar.

The ICICI Bank board backed her initially but later appointed former Supreme Court judge B N Srikrishna to conduct an independent investigation. The onslaught from stakeholders saw Kochhar fight a battle that put her back to the wall, and if it’s testimony to her sheer tenacity as a fighter, most of India Inc wasn’t sure which way the wind was going to blow because of her refusal to crumble under pressure. In the end, Kochhar threw in the towel and the bank’s board accepted her resignation. As if on cue, the markets responded lifting the ICICI Bank stock up by 4 per cent. 

 

Many queries remain. Justice B N Srikrishna declined to comment on the matter when contacted. ICICI Bank didn’t, either. Still much truth can be found in Kochhar’s own comments over the years. In an interview, when asked why ICICI Bank attracted so much negative attention, her answer was “it’s the challenge of being a leader. Not only are we big in terms of assets, we are leaders and we do things that are ahead of the others”. As the head of a private sector bank with over $100 billion in assets, Kochhar, who was born in Jaipur, moved to Mumbai with her family after losing her father at the age of 13. She wanted to be an IAS officer but then found her way to banking after a degree in economics at Jai Hind College and then an MBA at Jamnalal Bajaj, where she ran into K V Kamath, who had visited the place for campus interviews.

The rest, as they say, is history, and Kochhar worked her way up the ranks to become the youngest banker to lead ICICI Bank. Her style included a punishing work schedule, which included taking day trips to New York and making it back in time for board meetings. Her few indulgences had self-admittedly been shopping for sarees and jewellery, and watching the latest Hindi movies. She made it a point to take out time from her schedule for a media event to engage in a fireside chat with actress Deepika Padukone, earlier this year. When Padukone asked her what she might do if she were to work in films, the answer was “probably handle the schedules and the catering for the cast”.

Among her top achievements, she drove ICICI Bank’s next phase of growth with a number of significant actions that included the acquisition of Bank of Rajasthan, as well as almost doubling the number of branches from 1,400 to 2,500 across 600 cities between 2009 and 2011. 

Kochhar got several awards as a leading banker and business leader in India and made it to several global lists including Time Magazine’s 2015 list of 100 Most Influential People in the world. She was also appointed head of a committee under the Ministry of Power to recommend solutions to coal and gas supply problems. The bank brought in over 18 million un-banked people into the system during her tenure. The tide, however, was starting to turn in 2015. ICICI Bank found itself increasingly bogged down with bad loans, something she couldn’t contain. Between FY15 and FY18, its net profit fell from Rs111.8 billion to Rs67.8 billion, while non-performing assets more than tripled. “Situations and challenges are part and parcel of life, however, I have always viewed challenges as learning opportunities,” Kochhar said in an earlier interview, adding that banks had faced the issue of stressed assets due to various difficulties confronted by corporates. It’s hard to miss the irony of the statement, given the allegations of wrong-doing in favour of her husband. Did Kochhar know about the so-called dealings? In her reply to a show -cause notice from the market regulator, she said she was not aware of her husband’s business dealings with Videocon.

It doesn't really matter because as she's said herself, "I do believe in destiny." Now that may be easier said than done.