Gujarat names Uday Kotak chairman of Gift city

GUJARAT: The Gujarat government has appointed veteran banker Uday Kotak as chairman of Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, commonly known as Gift City, replacing former bureaucrat Hasmukh Adhia.

The appointment comes as Gift City sharpens its push to attract global capital with liberalised tax and regulatory norms, positioning itself as a rival to financial centres such as Singapore and Dubai.

Earlier this month, the Centre doubled the tax holiday for entities setting up operations in Gift City to 20 years, a move aimed at accelerating offshore banking, fund management and capital market activity within the zone.

Uday Kotak brings more than four decades of experience in India’s financial sector to the role. He is the founder and former managing director and chief executive of Kotak Mahindra Bank, which he established in 1985 as a modest bill-discounting business. Over time, the firm evolved into a diversified financial services group, spanning banking, capital markets, asset management and insurance. In 2003, it made history by becoming the first non-banking financial company in India to convert into a commercial bank. Kotak currently serves as a non-executive director on the bank’s board.

Kotak’s career is widely seen as one of the most notable entrepreneurial success stories in India’s financial services industry. In the early 1990s, Kotak Finance expanded into auto loans, investment banking and stockbroking, riding the momentum of India’s economic liberalisation in 1991. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Kotak did not hail from a prominent business family nor did he have the backing of deep-pocketed institutional investors, making the firm’s early expansion particularly arduous.