Punit Goenka, the former director of Zee Entertainment Enterprises, is not the only one who lost his board seat due to shareholders' activism last fortnight. In recent past, institutional shareholders of several companies, including Nestle and Wipro, have pushed back against board proposals by taking an aggressive stance while voting.
'This marks a turning point for Paytm, with the regulatory environment looking much clearer than it has been in the last two years.'
The special privileges granted to private equity (PE) investors by listed companies are set to go through shareholders' test. Under new rules introduced by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), all such arrangements will require shareholders' nod by way of special resolutions. Legal experts say arrangements that are unfair to other public shareholders may not pass the muster.
Hero MotoCorp's promoter Pawan Munjal emerged as the highest paid director.
Independent directors were supposed to safeguard the interest of all stakeholders.
'Pravin Rao's commitment and contribution to the company has been immense, and his partnership over the past three years has been critical to the successes and growth of our company,' said Vishal Sikka, chief executive officer at Infosys.
Zee Entertainment last week witnessed shareholder activism that saw an open call for the ouster of promoters and the incumbent management led by Punit Goenka. Besides, Dish TV also faced a similar call earlier this month. The trouble at Zee Entertainment can be gauged from the fact that this is a unique company wherein the promoters own just 3.99 per cent, but fully control the firm.
Most listed corporate entities in the country are in a fix. With the sudden declaration in late March of a nationwide lockdown to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, the final calculations of their financial results for the year 2019-20 (FY20) are hanging in limbo. Till April 19, only 41 of the 3,947 companies listed on the BSE have managed to finalise the dates for the declaration of their yearly financial results.
Promoters and top executives intending to buy or sell shares of their companies might soon have to inform the market well in advance for such transactions.
The top companies with a striking gap in pay between the senior-most executives and median employees in 2017-2018 belonged mostly to sectors such as information technology, auto and engineering.