What is brewing in Kotak Mahindra--Mr Kotak says wait till this afternoon

Much speculations making rounds across the equity markets in India last two days since Kotak Mahindra Bank invited mediapersons for a press briefing to be held at 1515 hours on Wednesday. Usually press invites carry the agenda to be addressed by the person speaking to media but this time it has been different leading to wide speculations not only among business journalists and analysts but also investors. Uday Kotak, the face of Kotak Group will be making an announcement minutes before the markets go for closing.

The speculations, though did not raise Kotak Mahindra Bank share prices in the markets since the news broke but somewhat uncanny it is--the speculations have raised the prices of Axis Bank on both NSE and BSE on both Tuesday and this morning. Will it be an announcement related to Axis Bank that Uday Kotak is going to make on Wednesday--but then as government holds significant amount of stakes in Axis Bank, acquiring it by the Rajkot-born banker is not going to be an easy task though he has been keeping his eyes on Axis Bank for sometime now. Known for his interest in the merger and acquisitions related activities, Uday Kotak is definitely going to make an announcement today related to yet another listed entity as he has chosen the market closing hour for the press conference. There are also talks that the 56-year old banker may even opt for buying out a non-listed entity in the payment banking arena. 

Whatever comes out from his media conference, for that we will have to wait for yet another five hours but the man who loves acquisition to make his Group's footprint stronger across sectors, may bring in some major twists in the financial sector today during the media meet. It may be recalled here that earlier Kotak had acquired ING Vysya in an all stock deal, later it bought 15 per cent equity in MCX. It also acquired PineBridge Mutual Fund's domestic schemes and agreed to make substantial investment in Airtel M Commerce Services to set up a payments bank.