"Our objective is to be a market leader in each of the businesses we are in. We are already the market leader amongst the private sector companies and I think it's now a question of becoming the market leader overall" K.V. Kamath Managing Director & CEO/ ICICI Bank Ltd

The swanky glass-and-steel 11-storey ICICI bank Towers located bang in the middle of Mumbai's hottest suburban commercial district, the Bandra-Kurla complex (BKC), is in many ways the most dazzling billboard for ICICI's undisguised ambition and aggression in the marketplace that is retail banking. But not all of the grand designs of India's largest private sector banking conglomerate are being blueprinted in the building with high-speed lifts and floors sprayed with fire retardant. For instance, roughly six kilometres away in central Mumbai is the office of ICICI Lombard, the non-life insurance business of the group. Not too far away, in mills land territory, is tucked away another insurance joint venture-this one for life-ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd. Cheek-by-jowl is yet another subsidiary, Prudential ICICI Asset Management Company Ltd in Peninsula Towers, perhaps the only other group office that can hold a candle to the bank's corporate office in BKC.

The ICICI group has one other subsidiary in south Mumbai, ICICI Securities Ltd, and another in the mill land area of central Mumbai, which is ICICI Venture Funds Management Company Ltd. But the purpose of this feature isn't to plot ICICI outposts on Mumbai's financial services atlas. Rather, it's this clutch of ICICI subsidiaries-six, including ICICI Direct, the online securities trading portal-that complements the bank's vision, and completes the picture of a one-stop financial supermarket. And as K.V. Kamath, group Managing Director & CEO, indicates, leadership aspirations aren't restricted to just ICICI Bank Towers. "Our objective is to be market leader in each of the businesses we are in (life and non-life insurance, mutual fund, venture capital and securities)," says the 58-year-old Kamath. Together, these subsidiaries manage assets worth Rs 55,000 crore, have notched up profits of Rs 800 crore plus (if we include the new business profit of the life insurance subsidiary for 2005-06), and command a conservative valuation of Rs 27,500 crore. That works out to around 20 per cent of ICICI Bank's assets, 30 per cent of its bottom line, and 42 per cent of its market capitalisation.

Growth Story

To be sure, each of the half-a-dozen ICICI subsidiaries, manned by ICICI loyalists for decades, has a growth story to tell. At ICICI Centre in Churchgate, where Kamath often drops in for lunch when he is in that part of town, ICICI veteran of 25 years S. Mukherji is applying the final touches to a foray into retail broking-online broking channel ICICI Direct will soon merge into ICICI Securities, of which Mukherji is MD & CEO. Along with online broking, ICICI Securities will also get access to ICICI Direct's business of fund mobilisation for initial public offerings (IPOs) for retail investors, done again through the internet (as long as the investor has an account with ICICI Bank). These will be the newest activities yet for ICICI Securities, which so far has investment banking and the fixed income business in its portfolio. Sandeep Bakhshi, MD & CEO, ICICI Lombard, is eyeing the rural hinterland in tandem with healthcare, two under-penetrated segments that are set to explode once fixed tariff regime in the insurance sector ends in December. Shikha Sharma, MD & CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, has a vision to cover the huge mass of India's young and affluent middle class with an array of retirement solutions. Pankaj Razdan, one of the youngest CEOs in the mutual funds industry as well as amongst the ICICI subsidiaries, is looking beyond the metros to build service capabilities as the business scales up to another level. And the second lady in the pack, Renuka Ramnath, MD & CEO, ICICI Venture Funds, has set a target of adding another $2 billion (Rs 9,200 crore) to her kitty in the next two to three years-the corpus currently stands at roughly $2 billion.

SHIKHA SHARMA, 47 MD & CEO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd PROFILE: Started her career in ICICI in 1980 and has since worked in various departments like project finance, securities and retail BUSINESS MANTRA: Add value to the customer MOST LIKELY TO BE HEARD SAYING: "The life business is one of scale. A market share of about 20 per cent is when one really achieves critical size"

Market Leader

"We are already the market leader amongst the private sector companies and I think it's now a question of becoming the market leader overall," says Kamath. To be sure, in life and non-life insurance as well as mutual funds, the ICICI affiliates have an edge over the competition (see Numero Uno Or Nothing...). But there's still plenty of catching up that's left to be done with the public sector. In mutual funds for instance, there's big daddy uti Mutual Fund with assets under management (AUM) of Rs 35,000 crore. Prudential ICICI, for its part, isn't far behind at a little over Rs 34,000 crore. "We have reached there in just a short span of eight years," says Razdan. The other ICICI arm that's competing with the public sector, is ICICI Prudential Life, which has leader, the 50-year-old Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) in its sights. ICICI Pru had a 29.7 per cent market share in 2005-06 within the private sector, but bring on the public sector and its slice of the pie whittles down to 10.1 per cent. LIC, meantime, is way ahead, with 65.8 per cent. "The life business is one of scale. A market share of about 20 per cent is when one really achieves critical size," says Sharma, without specifying any time period. In the general insurance business too, ICICI Lombard is pitched against public sector competition-namely the four state-owned general insurance companies (United India Insurance, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and National Insurance), which have market shares ranging between 15 and 25 per cent. ICICI Lombard is top dog in the private sector, but when it comes to the non-life market as a whole, its share is still in single digits (7.81 per cent).

The race to overtake the public sector will be a long haul, but as far as comparisons with similar one-stop financial shops reveal, the group is streets ahead of the likes of the SBI and HDFC conglomerations across most of the subsidiary businesses. In life and non-life insurance, for instance, ICICI is comfortably ahead of the respective HDFC subsidiaries. Similarly, in mutual funds, Pru ICICI is miles in front of SBI's mutual fund business (see The No. 1 One-Stop Shop).

SANDEEP BAKHSHI, 44 MD & CEO, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Ltd PROFILE: Joined ICICI in 1986, and has risen through the ranks; worked in the project financing department till 2001 and then joined Lombard in January 2002. Was Chief Operating Officer at the time of the setting up of the general insurance subsidiary BUSINESS MANTRA: Customer service and quality MOST LIKELY TO BE HEARD SAYING: "We are making huge investments in health and the rural sector. Retail is still a very under-penetrated market"

Scorching Pace

Doubtless, the pace set by the ICICI subsidiaries is scorching. ICICI Pru Life, for instance, has shown 64 per cent growth in the new premium income. ICICI Lombard's premium grew by a whopping 80 per cent in 2005-06. ICICI Prudential AMC has witnessed an over 60 per growth in its AUM and ICICI Venture joined in with a 42 per cent growth in its assets. "The objective is not only to attain leadership position, but also to sustain growth with customer focus," says Kamath.

Much of the motivation, as well as opportunity for that growth comes from the parent itself. Kamath may be the man in overall charge, but with people like Mukherji, Sharma, Ramnath, Razdan and Bakhshi, he's got a highly-charged (and loyal) A-team-carefully handpicked from the ICICI pool-to execute the group's vision. "He really makes entrepreneurs out of managers," points out Ramnath. "And access to ICICI relationships is also a big advantage," she adds. The proof of that pudding is the investments ICICI Venture has made in companies like Dr Reddy's Labs and PVR. The 18-year-old ICICI Venture, which Ramnath has been heading since 2001, has a diverse product basket that covers private investment, management buyouts, leveraged buyouts, real estate and structured products. Ramnath says the company's half-a-dozen funds dole out an average 25 per cent return annually. Unsurprisingly, ICICI Venture today has more foreign investors in its funds than domestic.

The Team

Like most of the subsidiary CEOs, Ramnath is an old ICICI hand, having spent two decades at the institution (and she's just 44). The exception, however, is Razdan, a rank outsider who worked with HMG Financial Services and Karvy Securities before joining ICICI Pru in 1998. The company has succeeded in beating back competition from global names like Templeton and established domestic marquees like HDFC. Razdan says: "The strong brand name helps in reaching out to customers in a faster way." And clearly he's not talking about Prudential, which is a 49 per cent partner in the AMC (the UK house holds 26 per cent in the life insurance JV). Today, the AMC has the widest range of schemes-close to three dozen-covering the entire gamut of mutual fund products, for both retail as well as corporates. "The focus on robust processes and the right technology really helped us to grow our business," adds Razdan for good measure.

The top three schemes in the stable of Prudential ICICI AMC are Emerging Star, with 89.20 per cent compounded annualised returns since inception followed by Discovery Fund (76.93 per cent) and Dynamic Plan (63.25 per cent). In 2005-06, the fund house mobilised Rs 5,600 under its 10 new schemes. The scheme that raised the biggest stash-all of Rs 1,397 crore-was the Prudential ICICI Infrastructure Fund. A relatively new business for the AMC is portfolio management services, which have a corpus of Rs 6,442 crore.

PANKAJ RAZDAN, 37 MD, Prudential ICICI Asset Management Company Ltd PROFILE: Probably the only ICICI 'outsider' to rise to the top; joined the group in 1998 BUSINESS MANTRA: Service the customer wherever she is MOST LIKELY TO BE HEARD SAYING: "We will be further scaling up our business by ramping up the distribution, product suite, processes and servicing centres"

First Off The Blocks

For the ICICI group, being first off the blocks matters a lot, and that first-mover focus is in ample evidence at the life insurance operations. ICICI Pru was the first in the sector to see the opportunity in unit-linked insurance products. Today, they account for a majority of its business. "We took consumer focus to a new level and tried to address the barriers in insurance," says Sharma, who has been with the insurance arm since its inception in 2000. Today, ICICI Prudential Life's product basket includes term insurance, savings-linked insurance, health insurance, retirement and child care. "We will continue to look at gaps within each of the segment and address them," adds Sharma. Incidentally ICICI Prudential Life is probably the only insurance company rated by Fitch Ltd.

In its sixth year of operation, the life subsidiary has written 8.37 lakh policies and the sum assured has pole vaulted to Rs 45,888 crore. On the distribution front, the subsidiary has grown to 177 branches across 132 locations and has an advisor strength of over 72,000. In partnership with its nine bank partners and over 200 corporate agents and brokers, its reach has increased exponentially, to about 4,000 distribution points across the country.

RENUKA RAMNATH, 44 MD & CEO, ICICI Venture Funds Management Company Ltd PROFILE: 20 years of experience in the ICICI Group in areas like merchant banking, corporate finance and e-commerce BUSINESS MANTRA: Not just an investor but a value-adding one MOST LIKELY TO BE HEARD SAYING: "In the current backdrop of economic buoyancy, launching another $2 billion private equity fund in the next two years is not impossible"

Taking a cue from ICICI Bank, general insurance company, ICICI Lombard, a 74:26 JV with the $26 billion (Rs 1,19,600 crore) us-based Fairfax Holdings, is going the whole hog into retail, with motor and health products. In 2005-06, the subsidiary witnessed a 140 per cent growth in the number of policies sold, to 14.61 lakh. In the same period, the contribution of retail has jumped from 35 per cent to 46 per cent. The branch strength today stands at 154 in 99 locations. "We have grown at over 80 per cent year after year. The industry is expected to grow between two and three times GDP which translates to about 25 per cent per annum," says Bakhshi, CEO of ICICI Lombard, which has the highest paid-up capital, of Rs 245 crore, amongst general insurance companies in the private sector. The claim disposal ratio (claims reported to claims settled) is at an impressive 95 per cent as against the industry average of 90 per cent.

Service-oriented Businesses

The insurance ventures and the AMC are service-oriented businesses, a large part of it focussed on the retail consumer, but it's a bit of a different ball game at the venture capital and securities operations, where deal-making is the name of game. Consider first ICICI Securities (I-Sec) which, after parting ways with JP Morgan in the early 90s, began building a portfolio of fixed income, merchant banking and institutional broking businesses, with one business providing a hedge against a downturn in another. "Looking back, our fixed income, investment banking and equities businesses have always done well irrespective of market conditions," says Mukherji.

S. MUKHERJI, 53 MD & CEO, ICICI Securities Ltd PROFILE: 25 years of experience in the ICICI Group in areas like oil & gas, petrochemicals and energy BUSINESS MANTRA: Have to provide clients with value MOST LIKELY TO BE HEARD SAYING: "I-Sec's next big bet will be retail (broking and fund mobilisation ). It's a very stable business"

In 2005-06, I-Sec was No. 2 after Ernst & Young in the mergers & acquisitions (M&A) sweepstakes, with 29 mandates amounting to $2.32 billion or Rs 10,672 crore (according to Bloomberg 2005-06 data). "Cross border M&A is one area where we are further consolidating our lead," says Mukherji. Similarly, as a broker in the institutional market, ICICI Brokerages Services is in the top three next to Enam Securities and Karvy Stock Broking with 68 issues under its belt in 2005-06. Adds Mukherji, an avid trekker, who has been with ICICI Securities for the last two-and-a-half years-before that he was with Executive Director (Project Finance & Stressed Assets) at ICICI Bank: "The globalisation of India has changed the business mix of the securities business."

With the subsidiaries valued conservatively at Rs 27,000 crore (see ...And A Total Valuation Of At Least Rs 27,500 crore), Kamath might have bumped into quite a few investment bankers (including perhaps those from his own group!) who would have suggested IPOs for some of the individual operations. "There are no plans to go public as of now," says Kamath. As the ICICI subsidiaries ramp up on the products, processes, servicing and distribution fronts, you can never rule them out in future-a not-to-distant future.