Pioneer of investment banking in India, Udayan Bose dies at 71

Veteran dealmaker Udayan Bose, who brought modern investment banking and venture capital to India in the ’80s and set up the second private Indian mutual fund expired yesterday. He was suffering from heart and kidney-related issues. 

Bose straddled the world of pinstriped bankers of London’s Lombard Street and the earthy stock markets of Mumbai and Kolkata. He threw away an opportunity to head Deutsche Bank’s Australia operations to turn entrepreneur by acquiring a vintage broking firm which he then used to partner Lazard (a global investment bank) and create India’s first multinational investment bank.

 A young achiever from Kolkata’s Presidency College, Bose started his career with Grindlays Bank where he rose to be a director of Asia-Pacific before moving on to European Asian Bank (which became Deutsche Bank). As a merchant banker (as investment bankers were known then), he helped movers and shakers of the ’80s and ’90s strike deals, like R P Goenka’s acquisition of HMV. 

An anglicised banker with a baritone voice, Bose would at times appear incongruous among desi stockbrokers whether in Mumbai or Kolkata. But deep inside, he still had a middle-class family values. Once when talking to a reporter on a major assignment that he was taking, he requested that his picture be carried in the Kolkata edition as that would make his mother happy.