Lakshmi Vilas Bank acquisition has changed the complexion of our business manifold: DBS Global CEO

“In the middle of COVID, we had the opportunity to acquire distressed bank, Lakshmi Vilas Bank through a competitive process and that has changed the complexion of our business manifold,” said Piyush Gupta, Global CEO of DBS in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18.

The bank now has 500 plus branches, is in 350 cities, and has a scale that it did not have even 10 years ago.

Even though the LVB franchise will still take some time to be profitable, it is DBS’ fastest growing business, he said.

Over the past decade, Gupta noted, their M&A strategy focused on bolt-on deals that they could integrate and create value from, rather than large transformational acquisitions, which are often challenging in banking.

They prefer to consolidate and build their own capabilities, staying open to the right deals that they have the management bandwidth to effectively integrate and enhance.

These are the edited excerpts of the interview.

Q: You talked about India and Singapore, and as I said, natural allies, and there has been momentum building along this partnership. How do you see it from here on and what do you believe will be the points of partnership where more can be done at this point in time?

A: For me, this India-Singapore connect, there are really two important things that we want to try and achieve. One is to celebrate what we already have and the truth is that in the last few years, a lot of people have lost focus on understanding how important this relationship is and how much attraction it has gained over the last five, seven years, especially in recent times with the boom of the Middle East. So everybody tells me, Middle East is where it’s happening. And I sometimes laugh and tell people, the Middle East might happen in terms of promise in the future.

But think about Singapore. If you look at any calculations, Singapore’s investments in India are well north of $100 billion, probably close to $150 billion. That’s massive. It’s much larger than any single country in the world, the stock of investment, but also the flow of FDI, look at the last five, six years. Every year, Singapore is the largest FDI into India. And some people tend to believe that this is, round-tripping of somebody else’s money like Mauritius.

It’s actually Singapore money. It’s GIC, it’s Temasek, its DBS, M-Corp, Singapore Airlines, Singapore Telecom, these are Singapore’s champions who are heavily invested in sector after sector. We are in the port, we are in infrastructure, we are in energy, we are in telcos, we are in finance. So it’s an unappreciated story, and we need to make sure we celebrate that a lot more.

The reverse is also true. When I talked about we created digibank in India and then took it out all over the world, that reflects a couple of really important things. India’s ability, the talent base, and the tech capabilities are really exceptional. And so that you can actually take that and engineer and drive a lot of stuff as you go out into the East. We have been able to do that in our own case. And therefore, we need to recognise and appreciate that story. That’s the first part.

Now, to your specific question, the way forward, I am just so bullish on the opportunity we have for two or three reasons. Number one, everybody knows, India is the story of the moment and will be the story for the next several years, decades, maybe. And a lot of Singapore’s capabilities and strengths are well aligned to be able to participate in that India growth story.

You asked which sectors, we talked about AI, machine learning, and technology and India has some strengths, so does Singapore. Energy, it’s a big deal for India, 500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030. Singapore is a champion today in renewable and green finance. So it’s an opportunity for us to co-construct, co-create, including moving up the value chain, things like hydrogen and so on.

If you look at infrastructure, continuous to be a big need in India. Everybody knows infrastructure Singapore is great, but it’s not just because it’s a small city. Singapore has capabilities, public housing, for example. I think there’s a huge opportunity over there. Water, going to be a big crisis in South Asia and India. Singapore has mastered water. So there are fields and infrastructure that Singapore can clearly participate in.

And a source of capital, it’s a small country, but we have over a trillion dollars in reserves, and we are consciously reallocating capital across the spectrum, so that’s a big opportunity. The reverse is true. India’s always had a look-East policy, now act-East policy, but for the first time, I can see that India’s actually focused on both sides of the supply chain, and looking at Asia ex-Japan, ex-China quite seriously. One is on the sourcing side. As you think about Viksit Bharat, the best way you get Viksit Bharat is to plug into Asia’s supply chains, and that is something that is already beginning to happen.

The geopolitics helps and because geopolitics, all our clients, for example, the Koreans, the Taiwanese, everybody from Asia, the Western multinationals, are all looking at creating an additional capacity in India. So that’s a huge opportunity for India to be able to attract a lot of this supply chain work. But equally at the tail end of the chain, for the first time, Indians are beginning to think about global brands. And many of these global brands would play extremely well in Southeast Asia. You know, people don’t realise, but you think about Indonesia. Do you know what the word for a three-wheeler, auto rickshaw is in Indonesia? Bajay.

Do you know why Bajay? It’s Bajaj. So it did have a god rage. It’s got a lot of brands in Malaysia so Indian brands, actually, the price point and the brand positioning is quite good. So there’s an opportunity for India on both sides, the sourcing procurement side, but also the distribution and sales side. So I do think because of the alignment of interest, the nature of geopolitics, the massive growth, Singapore doesn’t have a natural hint on it. And therefore, the ability to build this connection is actually very, very interesting for both countries.

In the middle of COVID, we had the opportunity to acquire distressed bank, Lakshmi Vilas Bank through a competitive process and that obviously has changed the complexion of our business manifold. We are now 500 plus branches, we are in 350 cities, and so we have a scale today that we certainly did not even 10-years ago. Now like many other international players we have paid tuition fees along the way, but I have to say today India is our fastest growing business, even though the LVB franchise will still take some time to make it profitable, but in aggregate it is our fastest growing business.

Q: What about appetite for putting more money to use in India? You talked about Lakshmi Vilas Bank and how that’s playing out for you. I know that the government hasn’t moved so far as far as its bank privatisation plan is concerned but IDBI Bank is still up for grabs and that hasn’t moved so is that is that a potential area of interest?

A: If you look at our M&A strategy for the group in the last decade we like to do bolt-on deals that we can integrate and create value from. So large transformational M&As in banking are very challenging and rarely work and so that’s been our mindset do enough, consolidate and then build your own capabilities at the same time. We are always open on the lookout to do the right kind of deal but it’s got to be a kind of deal that we think we have the management bandwidth to bring some value to.

Q: While speaking of value you have had a very strong Q1 record net profit, total income, return on equity and it’s been a great run for banks not just globally but here in India as well as you look at the future, macros continue to be fairly resilient even though geopolitics is uncertain what do you see going forward?

A: What has been obvious the tailwind banking has had is that interest rates have been high and so that’s helped the net interest margin of most banks, this is obviously quite helpful.

Q: So you factoring in one or two cuts this year?

A: I think probably two is my bet but I don’t think you’ll see as many cuts next year as a lot of people, frankly even this year, people speculated six, seven cuts. I think we are lucky to get two and I don’t think the pace of cuts next year will be as sharp as people think.

For full interview, watch accompanying video

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