Ambit Corporate Finance's Ashok Wadhwa: Setting a scorching pace

At five feet and seven inches, Ashok Wadhwa doesn't strike you as a runner but he clocks 50 km a week and describes himself as a marathon runner. If Wadhwa seems an unlikely person to be on the running circuit, it's quite a different matter when it comes to the cocktail circuit. In Mumbai's power circles, Wadhwa is an ace networker, frequently seen with his TV producer wife Reena, socialising at parties and dinners. In part, that skill is what has catapulted Ambit Corporate Finance, the firm he founded in 1997, to the big league of investment banking. This summer, the barely six-year-old newbie bulldozed into investment banking's super league as the third biggest deal-maker, rubbing shoulders with such hoary oldies such as DSP Merrill Lynch, JM Morgan Stanley and Kotak Mahindra.

In the last 18 months, Ambit has struck a deal a month, notching up 18 deals valued at Rs 1,316 crore. But the deal that Wadhwa is really chuffed about in the past couple of weeks is the one he pulled off last month, when in a swift move, three top investment bankers-Ashish Guha, Amit Mukherjee, and Sanjay Sakhuja-hopped across to join Ambit. Actually, when the trio-one was the CEO and the other two managing directors-quit Lazard in June this year, they had little intention of joining a rival firm, opting instead to strike it on their own. But that's when Wadhwa stepped in. At a meeting at the exclusive Belvedere club in Mumbai's Oberoi, Wadhwa had a simple proposition for the three: "Unless you find the task of looking for a new office so exciting, why don't you guys join us?" On August 1, the Guha, Mukherjee and Sakhuja signed up as partners or owner-managers.

The induction of the three heavyweight bankers is part of Ambit's strategy for its future growth and, indeed, the next phase of its evolution from being a Wadhwa-centric dealmaking hotshop to a full-service multiple practice big time investment bank.

Quick And Quiet

Perhaps it's Wadhwa's relatively staid background of heading the tax practice at the erstwhile Arthur Andersen's Indian operations (he later became managing partner before he quit in 1997), which marks Ambit's inimitable yet quiet style. Late last year, when Deepak Roy, former President of Guinness UDV, a liquor major, decided to bid for the domestic whisky business of UDV India, and one of the private equity investors dropped out, leaving a yawning gap of Rs 10 crore, Wadhwa, whose firm was advising Roy, quickly stepped in and personally forked out Rs 10 crore. Thanks to that last-minute bailout, the deal was signed at 2 a.m. By the end of that day, Wadhwa had got other willing strategic partners lined up and, by the end of the week, Vijay Mallya's McDowell & Co. had picked up the financial investors' stake in Roy's new company Triumph Distillers. Ambit had notched up two deals in one shot.

Quick and quiet. Wadhwa style. Says the 42-year-old CEO of Ambit, who incidentally joined Arthur Andersen as its first professional employee in 1983: "We always wanted to create a niche for ourselves by structuring transactions so as to create value.'' Ambit's deals try to do just that. When Pharmacia wanted to acquire Abbott Labs to expand its presence in India, Ambit proposed a structure that enabled a win-win for both companies. For former StanChart Global CEO Rana Talwar's strategic investment in Centurion Bank, Ambit provided a unique structure-while Sabre was allowed to access new capital, the existing investors were allowed to participate in the growth process on the same pricing. Says Ernst & Young's CEO 'Bobby' Parikh: "Ashok has a strong perceptive ability to identify the needs of both the parties to a corporate transaction and put together a deal.''

Wadhwa always oozes ambition. Even when he was at Arthur Andersen, where he clocked 14 years. And by March 2003, when Ambit had already carved out a niche for itself as a boutique investment bank, Wadhwa couldn't wait but take his firm into a higher orbit. "I'm not someone who is easily satisfied by being where you are. I like to rewrite my aspirations," says Wadhwa. Concurs former colleague Sid Khanna, who's now Senior Partner at Accenture Financial Services, UK: "Ashok is an extremely intelligent and driven businessman, always seeking to create value. He likes to operate on a very large canvas."

By 2005, Wadhwa wants to take Ambit to the very top of the pack so that it becomes a preferred choice for big companies and MNCs.

Ambit's A-team: (From left to right) Ashish Guha, Partner; Sanjay Bansal, Director; Manish Kanchan, Director; Ashok Wadhwa, Partner and CEO; Sanjay Sakhuja, Partner; Carlton Periera, Director, and Amit Mukherjee, Partner

Matching The Mavens

That, even Wadhwa knows, is not going to be easy. Although Wadhwa's Ambit has racked up the number of deals it has done, it still is quite a minnow when it comes to size of deals. That's where the big three of investment banking-JM Morgan Stanley, DSP Merrill Lynch, and Kotak Mahindra-dominate. According to India Advisory Partners, a firm that tracks M&A deals, during 2002, the three bulge bracket investment banks had done 37 deals valued at Rs 14,035.7 crore and comprising 45 per cent of the total deals struck. In contrast, Ambit had done 12 deals worth Rs 935.05 crore. In investment banking, striking deals has quite a bit to do with the individuals who head investment banks and Nimesh Kampani (JM's bossman), Hemendra Kothari (DSP Merrill's top guy) and Uday Kotak (Kotak Mahindra's head) are formidable rivals to take on. All three have nurtured relationships with top clients like the Tatas, the A.V. Birla Group, Reliance and Gujarat Ambuja for years. Such relationships help in making their banks the first choice for big clients.

So how exactly is Wadhwa trying to make Ambit India's hottest dealmaker? Sheer hard work is one answer. Wadhwa routinely puts in 12 hours a day, dotted with client meetings and pitches. Strategy is the other answer. Many of Wadhwa's senior staffers at Ambit are people who left Andersen when he did. And many of them enjoy a strong rapport with the erstwhile consulting firm's multinational clients. Not surprisingly, a large proportion of Ambit's deals are for multinational clients like GE, Pharmacia, Bayer, Pfizer, and Warburg Pincus. Not your typical boutique bank feeding off mid-sized clients.

But cracking into the bulge bracket of investment banking will be a challenge. But Wadhwa's most recent deal is designed to help him do that. Each of the three new bankers on board is known for domain expertise. Guha is a cement and telecom expert; ditto for Mukherjee in pharma and Sakhuja in banking and hospitality. Says a rival investment banker enviously: "How many investment banks can have so many individuals who are each respected individually in the marketplace?"

Talking about the future, Wadhwa gushes to this writer about cross-selling Ambit's services, where a client in an M&A deal will also be sold tax advice or venture capital. And of how, after this phase of "internal consolidation", Ambit will aim for even bigger targets and deliver even more value to his clients. Interview over, he pops into his white Mercedes and zips through the Mumbai monsoon downpour across to a meeting. And another deal in the making.