Yes Man - Book Review

This well-written book could have several alternate titles, such as:

"How to Destroy a Bank, "How to Destroy a Business, "How to Destroy a Career", "How to Destroy Your Family Reputation", "How do you take YES and make a terrifying NO"

While we all know of the massive fraud, blunders and utmost value destruction that Rana Kapoor wrecked on his own business - YES BANK, this book details the incredibly horrific build-up of bad decisions, bad governance, bad morals and bad everything, resulting in the downfall of the Chief Fraud Officer - Mr. Kapoor

If you want to get minor currents of shock and awe, get and read this book.

Highlights:

"The result of the quality review was that the RBI judged Yes Bank’s total non-performing assets to be valued at ?8,400 crore as opposed to a declared value of ?2,000 crore. In other words, Yes Bank had under-reported its figures by as much as three times, or almost a billion dollars."

"The clients simply loved him because he would pretty much do anything to make them happy. He understood that banking was, above all else, a service."

"By all accounts, in the advertising world, the name ‘Yes’ came from Ryan Abraham, a young copywriter in his late twenties who was working for Triton at the time. Abraham recalls how, in his personal capacity as a young copywriter who tried to get a home loan, most banks would check his details out and say no. The majority of banks he tried to get a home loan from didn’t even understand what a copywriter did at the time, Abraham says. ‘I would spend half my time explaining what I did, and then they would say, “No, we don’t lend to your profession.” That’s how Yes Bank came about.'"

"The obsession with numbers that was more commonplace in the entertainment industry also seemed to have caught his fancy. There soon crept in a fascination with the number 9. Kapoor’s cars had that number on their licence plates as well, his employees would recall. Both his Nehru Place as well as the Indiabulls offices were on the ninth floor and one of his personal mobile numbers had as many as five 9s in them. Kapoor’s birthdate was 9 September 1957."

"His employees present there recall him asking them how his new $4,000 lightweight summer jacket that he had just bought from Canali looked."

In contrast, bankers like Uday Kotak, the founder of that other private bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, stayed so low-key in those days that it was hard to pinpoint why he wasn’t making more noise, given how successful his bank was becoming."

"Lawyers joke that when it comes to contests in the courtroom, the one with the most paper wins."

"Some of his invitees would leave within twenty minutes of getting there, noting that ‘there was an uncomfortable vibe."

"The idea pleased him, and he promptly decided to call in the Mercedes-Benz sales reps to discuss options to purchase not one but two S-Class Mercedes-Benzes for himself. One for Mumbai and one for Delhi."

Kautilya describes forty ways of embezzlement, some of which are: “What is realized earlier is entered later on; what is realized later is entered earlier; what ought to be realized is not realized; what is hard to realize is shown as realized; what is collected is shown as not collected; what has not been collected is shown as collected; what is collected in part is entered as collected in full; what is collected in full is entered as collected in part; what is collected is of one sort, while what is entered is of another sort.”

"Between 2015 and 2018, Yes Bank would go on to become increasingly top-heavy. According to the bank’s annual reports, the company would categorize at least 146 members as upper-level executives, a category that could be referred to as top management.

Banks that were larger than Yes Bank had fewer senior employees.For example, HDFC Bank reported twenty-five managers, ICICI twenty-five and Axis Bank less than a quarter of Yes Bank, with sixteen managers."

"A bank whose promoter relished living the high life, with trophy real estate and a string of homes across the world, had mismanaged affairs to the point where people couldn’t access their own money."

"Kapoor was left with not even enough money to pay for the services of a lawyer that he would need to fight the cases piling up against him while he remained jailed in Taloja Prison in Mumbai."

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