Kuala Lumpur: The CEO of India's ICICI Bank K V Kamath was named the Businessman of the Year for 2007 today by Forbes Asia, which credited him with turning the lender into the country's most valuable and one of Asia's top banks.

Under the 60-year-old Kamath, ICICI's market capitalisation has risen to 31 billion dollars compared with 1.6 billion dollars in 2002, when the original corporate lending institution merged with its commercial banking offshoot.

The bank has built a customer base of 27 million, and in 2006, added another 8 million, which is more than the population of Singapore, Kamath said.

"Our story is the India story. This story was led through knowledge," Kamath told a press conference here today. He said rising aspiration levels of the consumers provided the required impetus to the bank's growth.

"We have so far built the foundation. The superstructure still needs to be built," he said. Asked the reason behind his success, he said "no leader succeeds without a team. I take credit for building that team and encouraging the process of idea-generation of that team."

With his selection as the businessman of the year, Forbes Asia has awarded Indian executives three times in the last four years, the previous winners being Nandan Nilekani of Infosys and Ratan Tata.

ICICI's assets have grown 40 per cent annually in the last three years to $93 billion, propelled by a boom in Indian consumer credit where the private sector lender has a dominant one-third market share.

Source : PTI