Mr Siva Shankar was earlier the Director of Structured Finance and Syndication in the corporate banking team. Since his roles involve studying capital restructuring and turnaround strategies for companies, he shared processes and perspectives from the complex world of investment banking and financial restructuring with students.
Mr Siva Shankar talked at length about the Global Special Situations Group (GSSG) in India, which is an on-balance sheet proprietary investment group with expertise and presence in all major financial centers. GSSG was the result of the merger of Citigroup’s restructuring teams in corporate high yield, emerging markets and real estate. GSSG allocates capital globally with over 80 investment and servicing professionals and $5 billion in capital around the globe. It commits funds to lead or participate in the restructuring of corporate borrowers or to assist institutions to successfully reposition themselves through divestment of their non-core or non-performing assets and directing investment to their core businesses.
Mr. Siva Shankar explained how CitiGroup’s GSSG invests in 3 overlapping strategies: liquidations of closed enterprises, restructurings of recovering corporate borrowers and new capital commitments to borrowers. He also explained CitiGroup’s GSSG’s investment strategies. According to him, GSSG evaluates each situation individually. The primary thrust is on preserving value in the core or healthy businesses. GSSG focuses on industry cycles and the opportunities created by events. When committing capital, it considers four basic alternatives: event-driven investments in debt or hard assets, new money commitments, capital structure arbitrage and private equity. GSSG has staff in 9 locations in Asia, India being one of them.
Mr. Siva Shankar also fielded questions from students of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay. He was on campus as part of SJMSOM’s Diksha program -- a regular series of talks conducted by eminent speakers. Other distinguished speakers who have participated in this program include note scientist Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, Ms. Sangita Singh (Head, Strategic Marketing, Wipro Technologies) and Mr. Neeraj Swaroop (Country Head Retail Banking, HDFC Bank).
IIT Bombay’s management school was set up in 1995 with the objective of transforming professionals with technological background into business leaders. In 2000, the school was renamed Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, in honor of Dr. Shailesh J. Mehta, a distinguished alumnus of IIT Bombay.
