Kamal Ghorui
MUMBAI: Kotak Mahindra Bank Saturday confirmed that it is looking at Deutsche Bank’s retail business, which is on the block, while stating that it has dropped out of IDBI Bank acquisition race because of the valuation and it would be ‘difficult to swallow’.Responding to queries at an earnings press conference Ashok Vaswani, MD & CEO said the bank would pursue deals only if they met three filters — strategic fit, financial viability and manageable execution without straining management bandwidth — and would apply the same criteria to evaluate Deutsche Bank’s assets.On IDBI, Vaswani said that Kotak had looked at the bank from every single position from a valuation perspective. “Obviously it was very highly valued. Of course, it has some kind of scale but it wasn’t really a must for us to do. Obviously, it would have been a difficult thing to swallow,” he said.Govt is reviewing how it should go about with a fresh bid to sell its stake in IDBI Bank, along with LIC’s.Kotak Mahindra Bank reported standalone net profit of Rs 4,026.6 crore for the quarter ending March 31, 2026, up 13.4% year-on-year from Rs 3,551.7 crore, supported by strong loan growth, lower provisions.
