On the last day of September, ICICI Bank issued a public statement. “ICICI Bank has a very strong capital position,” it said. “The absorption of the impact of current market conditions on investment portfolio valuation will not pose any challenge to ICICI Bank’s capital position.” The Reserve Bank of India concurred, issuing its own public statement: “There are reports in some sections of the...

A full-blown panic in the real estate and financial services sectors led to the withdrawal of nearly Rs30,000 crore from fixed maturity plans (FMPs) of mutual funds in the first week of October alone. These fund houses met redemption demands by borrowing money at high rates of 20% to 24%. Many were reluctant to utilise the bank credit lines for this emergency believing that when the...

ML: How did you come into this field?
SN: I started my career with Standard Chartered Bank, after passing out from IIM Ahmedabad. Then I was with Citibank for a few years. Till then, I was more like an interested onlooker in the stock market. I was not a regular investor. But in 1993, a head-hunter called and I got an opportunity to move to Hong Kong as an investment advisor for a fund...