MUMBAI: The fourth largest private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank has announced a 5:1 stock split coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the bank's predecessor as a non-banking finance company with Rs 30 lakh capital.
In an exchange filing Friday, the bank said its board approved the share split to make its shares more affordable and boost participation from retail investors.
The bank had last carried out a stock split way back in 2010, when the face value was reduced from Rs 10 to Rs 5. It also issued bonus shares in a 1:1 ratio in 2015.
In the filing, the lender also said its board cleared the sub-division of one equity share with face value of Rs 5 each, fully paid-up, into five equity shares with face value of Re 1 each, fully paid-up.
Meanwhile, in an X post, its founder Uday Kotak said: “Forty years ago today, I started a company (Kotak Mahindra Finance) with Rs 30 lakh capital, in a 300 sqft office in Fort, Bombay.”
He further said that the firm he launched in 1985 eventually evolved into Kotak Mahindra Bank from 2003, making it the first non-banking company to do so, which he led for nearly 38 years. Kotak resigned from all executive roles from the bank in November 2023 -- four months before his scheduled retirement. Now, he serves as a non-executive director on the board.
Later, the RBI approved Ashok Vaswani as CEO in April 2024 since the bank was under regulatory cross hairs leading to a complete ban on its credit card and digital banking services. Kotak's son Jay is a vice-president and co-head of the Kotak811 digital banking division.
According to Forbes, Kotak's net worth stands at $15 billion as of November 21, 2025, placing him at 170th position on the global rich list and the richest banker in Asia.
Kotak, who chose not to enter his family's trading business, set up a finance firm in 1985 and later transformed it into a bank in 2003. Kotak Mahindra Bank has since grown into the fourth largest private sector lender, strengthened further by its 2014 acquisition of ING Bank's Indian operations. The bank is also said to be eyeing the government stake in IDBI Bank.
Shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank settled lower at Rs 2086.50 per share on the BSE, down 0.51%. Kotak's shares have risen about 17% so far this year, compared to gains of 13% for HDFC Bank and 7% for ICICI Bank while Bank Nifty is up 16%.
The bank reported a 2.7% fall in its standalone net profit at Rs 3,253 crore in the September quarter as its provisions rose following the lingering pain in its retail and microfinance books.