Kuala Lumpur: The CEO of India's ICICI Bank, K V Kamath, has been named Businessman of the Year for 2007 by Forbes Asia, for his steadiness at steering ICICI into one of Asia's top banks.
Under Kamath's watch since 1996, ICICI's market capitalisation rose to 31 billion dollars on Thursday, placing it among the region's top 10 banks.
"By this measure, it is bigger than Singapore's DBS Group and Korea's Kookmin Bank, and has attracted big stakeholders such as Singapore's Temasek Holdings and CLSA and Merrill Lynch funds," Forbes said.
Sixty-year old Kamath's win puts him in the company of fellow countrymen Nandan Nilekani of Infosys Technologies, last year's winner, and Ratan Tata, the 2004 businessman of the year.
His addition means three Indian executives have won the accolade in the last four years. Tim Ferguson, Editor, Forbes Asia, said, "Kamath's leadership has been outstanding.
His focus on serving India's growing middle class by providing First World banking service at affordable prices is largely the reason behind the phenomenal growth of ICICI."
The bank's assets have grown 40 per cent annually in the last three years to 93 billion dollar, propelled by a boom in Indian consumer credit where ICICI has a dominant one-third market share.
Last year, the bank earned USD 790 million on net revenues of 3.2 billion dollar. By the end of this fiscal year, net revenues will swell to 4.3 billion dollar and net profit to 1.3 billion dollar, estimates research firm Macquarie Securities (India).
The bank today has a foothold in 18 countries, including the UK, Canada, Russia, Singapore and the UAE.
Kamath will receive the Businessman of the Year award here next week.
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