Vedika Bhandarkar MD & Head (Investment Banking)/JP Morgan India

If you perceive investment bankers as machinists fuelled by greed, hypocrisy and high risk --- you could blame Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker for that imagery perhaps --- you obviously haven't met Vedika Bhandarkar. A few minutes into a conversation with the Managing Director & Head of Investment Banking, J.P. Morgan India, are enough to wipe out those vivid images of fat-cat, short-sighted traders dancing in your head.
Bhandarkar has been in financial services for 14 years now, but you don't see too much of her in the media, pontificating about corporate prospects and fiscal well being. Along with her penchant for the low profile, her candour too is refreshing. For instance, she'll tell you that when she went on maternity leave to deliver her second baby, it was pretty much a tumultuous period for the firm, which was being restructured to become J.P. Morgan Chase. "My fear was: Would I have my job when I returned? Fortunately my firm surprised me positively."
It's not for nothing that J.P. Morgan surprised Bhandarkar positively. In the past six years, Bhandarkar has earned plenty of laurels for herself and the firm, the most recent and significant one being the $1.1-billion TCS public offering, where J.P. Morgan was the joint bookrunner. You won't find her taking individual credit for such deals, and that's largely because the "star" culture is pretty alien to J.P. Morgan. Yet, when it comes to executing and closing out deals, it's difficult to leave out Bhandarkar. Like, for instance, in ONGC's acquisition of MRPL from the AV. Birla group. Right from the outset --- when ONGC Chairman Subir Raha called up Bhandarkar and evinced his interest --- the odds were tipped against the deal. MRPL's balance sheet was a mess, loaded with $1.5 billion of high-interest debt. Bhandarkar and her team pulled off a minor miracle by convincing the 15 lenders to the project to take an average 25 per cent haircut. Today, MRPL has a comfortable capital structure, a healthy bottom line and a share price that's climbed over five-fold (in the Rs 40 range) since the restructuring.
Does that make Bhandarkar a star in Indian investment banking circles? She'll probably recoil with horror at such a suggestion. "It's a lot of grunt work. It's the visible results that add a touch of glamour ---you either raise equity/debt or you don't; an M&A either works or it doesn't." In Bhandarkar's case, it invariably does.