uday kotak executive vice chairman md kotak mahindra bank is one of the most seasoned financiers and has seen more business cycles than any other bank ceo in the country he has a presence in every financial business and has often made the right call on distressed assets the banks upcoming headquarter at bandrakurla is one such distressed asset purchase waiting to bear fruit as the group with a net worth of rs 13430 crore consolidates the entire staff into the facility in an interview to toi hours before finance ministers announcements on monday kotak spoke about the possibility of the crisis impacting weaker companies and how lenders need to ensure that promoters bear a portion of the hit as the industry moves to the next stage of a more difficult business cycle excerptsrbi has said that the promoter stake in kotak bank has to be brought down to 20 by 2018 how do you plan to achieve that our preference is new capital and mergers and acquisitions i dont think there are too many banks out there but ma is clearly an option these are our preferred tools at present there are two or three versions on promoter capital rules the draft bank guidelines talk about bringing down promoters capital to 15 the banking regulation act talks about voting rights of 26 we are going to see where it settles and match whatever is required for the bankdo you think lending rates will come down i am getting more and more doubtful about a rate cut until october when the agricultural produce starts coming into the market right now on the lending side the key is credit risks if you believe you can manage credit risks you should live with lower spreads if you are earning 2 you can bring it down to 15 as long as you are lending without riskkotak bank was among the first to raise rates on savings deposits yet most large banks have not revised their returns does it mean that deregulation has not had an impact our savings deposits were at rs 3500 crore in september 2011 by june 2012 we were at rs 5500 crore which means we grew by rs 2000 crore or a 60 growth in nine months we are going the whole hog and building savings deposit base by adding 50000 customers every day our plan is to have 500 branches by 2013 in addition to the 900 atms nationally there are at least 2000 customer touch points our restructured loans are the lowest in the industry and would be less than 003 of our loan book because we do not believe in restructuringwhat do you think needs to be done to revive the economy the economy is currently experiencing the froginthehotwater syndrome the first thing to be done is to stop the water from warming it is a huge challenge and we will have to take some shortterm pain for longer term solutions i wont be surprised