India's first self-made billionaire banker Uday Kotak started a small finance company three decades ago and built it into Kotak Mahindra Bank, India's second most valuable private lender. Kotak has recently entered the general insurance business and, in a separate venture, has teamed up with telecom billionaire Sunil Mittal's Airtel M Commerce to start a payments bank to provide basic banking services. The bank is reportedly setting up a $500 million fund with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to acquire stressed assets of Indian banks. For successfully acquiring rival ING Vysya Bank, partly owned by Dutch financial services group ING, last year Kotak was named Business Leader of the Year by the Economic Times newspaper. A resident of tony south Mumbai, he's bought an $8 million luxury apartment at the Bandra Kurla Complex financial district close to his bank's headquarters.