Asit Kotecha hopes to change the perception that Indian entrepreneurs don't donate to universities in India
Just inside the office of Pashmina Realty in Worli, there’s an entire wall covered by a poster of LIFE, an NGO (non-governmental organisation) whose Mumbai chapter focusses mainly on health, education and low-cost housing under the Asit Kotecha Foundation. The poster is full of slogans written by Pashmina employees who participate actively in the NGO.
Behind the poster wall is the office of Asit Kotecha, who owns Pashmina Realty and is founder of ASK Group, a financial and portfolio management services firm that advises wealth to the tune of $1.5 billion. Kotecha is not a new convert to giving; he’s been donating 10 percent of his profits to charity since the year his company was formed.
Asit and his younger brother Samir Kotecha founded ASK Group in 1983 to provide portfolio management and financial services and started giving away money to charity almost immediately, mainly in the areas of health and education. A large portion of the donation was routed through LIFE, which was managed by their cousins in Rajkot. Around 2005, they started the Mumbai chapter of LIFE under the Asit Kotecha Foundation. One of their biggest projects was the Habitat for Humanity, which provides housing for the poor.
But now Asit Kotecha is in the midst of his most ambitious giving project. A year ago, Kotecha donated Rs. 30 crore to the Mumbai University for building an international convention centre (ICC) at its Kalina campus and has now promised to bring in more funds as the cost of the centre has escalated to Rs. 200 crore.
“This amount is the biggest donation by any individual to any university in Maharashtra, if not India. Asit Kotecha has studied at Mumbai University. This donation will motivate some of the other alumni to come forward and participate in developing the university to achieve excellence and create a world class brand,” says Rajan Welukar, Vice Chancellor of Mumbai University.
Kotecha always had an eye for inflection points. Over the past 30 years, sectors like cement, auto, banking and steel went through regulatory and management changes that some companies managed better than others. Kotecha had a knack for identifying these companies long before the market realised their potential.
He got into Madras Cements in the late 1980s when the industry was decontrolled. The company was largely ignored by the market even though it had cash profits of Rs. 6 crore and a capacity of 12 million tonnes a year, one of the largest in the country. Kotecha got into the stock at Rs. 300 a share in 1989 and exited at Rs. 5,000 in 1992. He made similar killings in many other sectors, including two-wheelers and banks. He got into two-wheelers in the mid-1990s before others realised its potential and into PSU (public sector undertaking) banks when interest rates started to fall in early 2000.
Even with giving, Kotecha’s approach is pretty much the same. He’s looking for opportunities that can become inflection points for society, especially in education and healthcare. He firmly believes that education has the power to change societies.
“These are the areas where we get to see the change happening in front of our eyes. When this change touches the life of many people, it has a huge effect on society. Just like we see return on investment in a company, we like to look at the change that is caused by giving back to the society. It is the best return one can have. Asit is clear that the convention centre can cause a huge impact on Mumbai,” says Samir Kotecha who heads operations at ASK Group. His brother Asit is the strategist.
Indian promoters or CEOs have always preferred to give donations to universities abroad like Harvard or Stanford as they feel that Indian universities do not have the ability to utilise these funds well. Welukar wants to change all that and hopes Kotecha will become an example for other entrepreneurs.
When Kotecha first met Welukar in June 2010 at the university’s Fort campus to donate Rs. 3 crore for a new philosophy building in Kalina, he realised that things were different and Welukar, just a month into his job, was driving the change.
Thirty minutes into their meeting, when Welukar mentioned his dream of building one of the biggest convention centres at the Kalina campus, it didn’t take much time for Kotecha to agree to give Rs. 30 crore to the cause.
Universities across the world invest in convention centres as they help get international exposure and also attract talent. Welukar feels the ICC will create an environment conducive to innovation, research and learning as many international scientists and academic experts will come to the campus and inspire the students and faculty. Kotecha, on the other hand, looks at the impact on society when it comes to giving. He realised that the ICC was a landmark project with the potential to drive massive change.
(This story appears in the 02 December, 2011 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)