Mckinsey To Advise Icici On Merger With Banking Arm

Industrial Credit and Invest-ment Corp of India Ltd (ICICI) has hired McKinsey & Co to work out synergies with its subsidiary, ICICI Bank, as a prelude to a possible merger.

Sources said ICICI would try and leverage the synergies between the two organisations till a merger becomes permissible under law. The exercise is slated to begin after June, when ICICI Bank chairman P V Maiya retires. An official spokesperson of ICICI, however, denied any such move. The spokesperson said ICICI was appointing a consultant only to look at the use of information technology. However, sources said a move to create common operations between the bank and the FI was on. The move is said to be part of ICICI chief operating officer K V Kamaths vision of a universal bank.

Sources said ICICI would give priority to coordinating liabilities mobilisation with ICICI Bank. For this purpose, ICICI is looking at forming a division to oversee the mobilisation of resources, with specific emphasis on the retail end. The proposed division is expected to be made responsible for designing new products and formulating marketing and advertising strategies.

Waiting for an existing head to retire before taking control of an organisation is ICICIs trademark style. For instance, SCICI was merged into ICICI only after the formers managing director, N C Singhal retired.