MANY BANKERS PLAY GOLF, BUT FEW WITH such dedication and skill as Vikram Malhotra. “Everyone who knows me in Hong Kong will tell you I’m obsessed with golf,” says the head of Credit Suisse Group’s investment banking department for Asia-Pacific, including Japan. Malhotra has a handicap of three, but he never lets his competitive streak interfere with business. “I make sure I play on the same side as my clients,” says the Delhi, India, native, whose favorite course is Spain’s Valderrama Golf Club.
That approach served Malhotra well in 2012, when he took his current post and led the second-largest deal of his 25-year career with Credit Suisse. His team worked on five M&A and financing transactions for Hangzhou, China–based online retail conglomerate Alibaba Group. Credit Suisse was lead adviser to Alibaba on its $7.6 billion share buyback from Sunnyvale, California–based web giant Yahoo, a sale that closed last September. It also advised on Alibaba’s $2.25 billion move to take Alibaba.com private and helped provide a $10.6 billion package of loans and private placements for both deals.
Then in December, Malhotra, 47, represented a consortium of private equity firms including Washington-based Carlyle Group and Hong Kong– and Shanghai-based FountainVest Partners on China’s largest-ever buyout, of Shanghai advertising company Focus Media Holding. Completed last month, the purchase was valued at $3.7 billion, to which Credit Suisse contributed $1.5 billion in financing. “Vik is by nature a deal maker and loves to be on the front line to get a deal done,” says FountainVest co-founder Terry Hu. “He is razor sharp on commercial terms and very much attentive to details and can make his client feel that you have got all his attention.”
Those transactions helped propel Credit Suisse to No. 3 in the M&A rankings for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan in 2012, with 58 deals worth a total of $86.4 billion, according to Dealogic. That’s a jump of more than 75 percent over the bank’s seventh-place finish in 2011, when it advised on 62 deals worth a combined $49.2 billion.
Credit Suisse pulled off this turnaround amid a tough year for investment banks in Asia and while the Zurich-based firm was shedding staff. “During the boom years in Asia, people entered banking motivated by short-term financial reward that came relatively easily, but the industry dynamic has now changed, and taking a deal to completion is more challenging,” says Malhotra, an 18-year veteran of the region. “Challenging markets, in my opinion, make banking more interesting because you have to think and work harder to find creative solutions for clients,” adds the father of two.
A popular figure at Credit Suisse, Malhotra has worked in technology, media and telecommunications since he joined First Boston Corp.’s New York office in 1987 after earning an economics degree from Ohio Wesleyan University. As an analyst with the investment banking division, he soon found himself participating in big deals. A year later Malhotra moved to San Francisco. In 1990, when Credit Suisse acquired First Boston, he enrolled in Harvard Business School for an MBA before returning to Credit Suisse First Boston as a senior associate in the media and transportation group. He shipped out to CSFB’s Singapore office in 1995, just as wireless telecommunications arrived in Asia, and spent two years there before transferring to Hong Kong. After helping companies seeking wireless licenses obtain financing, he got involved in the Asian industry’s consolidation in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis.
Promoted to managing director in 2000, Malhotra was named co-head of Asia-Pacific debt and equity capital markets three years later. Deals like the $22 billion initial public offering of state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in 2006, when CSFB rebranded as Credit Suisse, led to his 2009 appointment as co-head of investment banking for Asia-Pacific with Helman Sitohang.
In Asia investment banking has long relied heavily on equities, but thanks to multisolution deals such as Alibaba’s, that’s changing, Malhotra says: “Since 2009 we have seen a diversification of demand for investment banking products in Asia, and now M&A advisory and credit products are making up a larger proportion of revenues.”
