With India’s economy growing by leaps and bounds, Goldman Sachs Group has decided to call it quits for a decade-long securities alliance with Uday Kotak, the Indian billionaire, and go it alone. Bloomberg News reports that GS has sold its 25% stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank ventures for $75 million, and is planning to apply for a license with Indian regulators to operate as an independent financial-services firm with an investment bank that would offer a “full service domestic presence.”
Despite ending their alliance, Goldman and Kotak Mahindra have signed a one-year cooperation contract under which “Kotak has agreed to provide consent for our regulatory filing process,” GS Indian head Brooks Entwistle said in a Bloomberg News interview. Between 2004 and 2005, the sale of stock and equity-linked securities of Indian companies grew from $8.9 billion to $14.4 billion.