Set up over five years back in September 2007, Tata Capital recently entered into the leasing market following an agreement with Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation. With a brand proposition of ‘We only do what’s right for you’, the Tata Sons subsidiary has strong is quite bullish about the entire financial services segment in India. In an interview with Sankalp Saini Tata Capital’s Managing Director & CEO Praveen Kadle discusses the company’s future growth strategy, the company’s penchant for alliances with Japanese firms and its PE business.
From commercial finance to wealth management and now leasing, Tata Capital provides a complete bouquet of financial products and services. Going forward, is the company planning foray into a different segment or offer newer services?
We believe that we now have to take a pause as we have the complete suite of products and services. One of the efforts going forward would be to provide a technology edge to our customers.
Tata Capital has strong and strategic alliances with various Japanese financial services firms. What are the major factors behind Tata Capital inking partnerships with Japanese firms?
When we started in 2007, what we found that foreign direct investment coming from Japanese investors was less than one per cent of the total overseas investment made by them whereas in many other countries, including China it was more than 10 per cent. We felt that we should look at getting Japanese investments into the Indian market because by not coming into India the Japanese investors were losing good opportunities to have very good returns. We had spent over an year talking to many financial institutions in Tokyo. The partnership with century Toyo Leasing Corporation Limited gives a further boost to the business of Tata Capital with leasing added to its bouquet of high quality financial services. Leasing can become a very big instrument in the overall investment structure, especially in the infrastructure sector.
Amongst the various segments that Tata Capital has a presence in, which one contributes the most to the topline?
Lending to corporates currently contributes the maximum to our topline. The second biggest contributor is retail lending that includes home loans.
How is your private equity fund business doing?
We have more than $1 billion as commitments under our private equity business for funds in place. So far, we have committed to invest almost $150 million to $175 million. We will now accelerate our investment activity. We have done till nearly eight deals from our PE funds.