Kotak Mahindra Bank and Evercore Inc, on Wednesday, refuted claims that the two entities are calling off their decade old tie up. “We have had a strategic alliance with Evercore since 2011 for cross-border advisory services between US, UK and India, and we will continue to collaborate and leverage our respective expertise to provide best-in-class advisory services to our clients,” said a spokesperson of Kotak Investment Banking.
The two entities have an exclusive tie-up on mergers and acquisitions advisory services on cross-border transactions between clients in India and the US, the UK and Mexico. Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Evercore also stated, “Throughout our decade-plus alliance with Kotak, we have and will continue to provide high-quality, objective advice using our combined expertise and strong knowledge of global and local markets.”
Earlier this week, a Bloomberg report, citing sources, had stated that Evercore is considering calling off the exclusive tie-up with Uday Kotak’s investment banking unit. It had further maintained that the US company was considering opening its own office in the country in order to free itself from the restrictions of its deal with Kotak Mahindra Capital Co. However, the same source had also confirmed to Bloomberg that Evercore’s plans for India was not yet finalised and it could still decide to continue the tie-up with Kotak Mahindra Capital for the time being.
Evercore partnered with Kotak in 2011, according to which the US company was constrained from working with anyone else to provide M&A advisory services on cross-border transactions between clients in India and the US, the UK and Mexico. If Evercore had to start its own India business, it would be in line with the strategy pursued by rivals including Jefferies Financial Group Inc. which has been working on building a local M&A advisory business. South Korea and Australia are the other two countries in Asia Pacific where Evercore has a presence through affiliates, according to its website, and it has its own teams in mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.