Paging Mark Haines

With the market rumors swirling about the imminent demise of ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochar the Joint Managing Director was all over TV spectrum clarifying that everything is okie dokie with the bank.  The stock was down 26% at one point but ended down “only” 19.86%. Watching the TV anchors question Chandra was almost like watching Oprah Winfrey interview Denzel Washington, the question were all softballs. If Mark Haines, of CNBC US, was asking the questions, I’m sure Chanda would have broke down and cried. She evaded every tough question in regards to the ICICI UK business, and made it very clear they are distinct entities.  Maybe, but at some point those books will be combined on the balance sheet and could adversely affect the Indian unit. She refused to give the mark to market positions of the ICICI UK book as of Sept 30 – are they using abacuses at the UK office?