Kailas – the financial role model

His was the private face of the public company. Today the company is the gilded leader on the stock exchange. 

In 1986, 30 years ago, when JKH ventured into the first-of-its-kind public offering in the country’s history, Visvanathan (Kailas) Kailasapillai, who passed away last week, wasthe self-effacing andventurous financialwizard and imaginative architect. Ken Balendra, the Chairman, was the public face as a gutty, visionarybuilder and communicator.  Together with a crack team, they did the banking rounds and road shows, but Kailas preferred to be in the shadows. 

There were grave doubtsabout the issue being fullysubscribed. Sri Lanka was then a tin-box economy bound tightly in red-tape. Investors and underwriters were nervous, as was the JHK staff. Not Kailas, however.Then, unlike now, there weren’t fancy predictive algorithms or intelligent spreadsheet applications to chart, analyse or forecast outcomes. Instead in the crucible that was Kalias’ brilliant mind was the cocktail of common sense that made him rightlypredict an oversubscription. He always got his sums right! 

As time went by the now cash-rich company morphed into a conglomerate. Mergers, acquisitions and expansions were the order of the day. The financial engineer—the Maestro—was in his element.  He inspired confidence in finance and banking circles.

Often, in answering a tough question, he would do a ‘back of the envelope’calculation and convince financiers to place their bets on the company. And so they did. He leveraged a terrific finance team led by Vivendra Lintotawela, who later succeeded Ken Balendra as Chairman, and he tapped the operational and professional talent in Susantha Ratnayake, the present Chairman, and Ajit Gunawardene, the Deputy.

All the while, even as Deputy Chairman, Kailasserved as a coach, egging people to discover their real passions. In his heyday Kailas was nimble in mind and a purposeful risk-taker driven by his confidence.  And yet, there was no flash in his style but instead an under-powering personality. That defined him.

His friends loved him and his family. And so it was only natural that when the 1983 racial riots broke out, the Lintotawela family embraced the Kailas family and sheltered them for nearly two weeks; and, when the goons nearly blew the cover, David Blackler, the then Chairman, smuggled the family to the JKH building.Even then, under severe personal stress, he displayedcharacteristic nonchalance, keeping his cool, and faith, while others were losing theirs…an attribute he commonly displayed in dealing with corporate upheavals and political pressures that were so common at that time. 

For those who are trying to climb the corporate ladder and are lookingfor role models, Kailas affords an enduring example.