The board of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) has rallied behind its embattled chairperson Rashmi Saluja, saying she had turned around the financial services company whose market cap has increased to about a billion dollars from under $100 million in March 2018. The board -- which is fending off an Rs 2,200 crore open offer by the Burman family -- said accusations had not only targeted Saluja but the entire Religare management that has made Religare debt free. "Our story has been one of resurgence under the guidance of the Board of Directors led by Saluja, executive chairman.
A top-class board is important from a systemic point of view, more so at a time when the wider financial world and India Inc is chasing the same talent as banks.
The board of HDFC Bank has approved the appointment of Keki Mistry and Renu Karnad as the additional non-executive directors of the bank, and V Srinivasa Ranjan as its executive director. Mistry was the chief executive officer and vice chairman of HDFC, which merged with the bank today (1 July 2023). Karnad has been the managing director of HDFC since 2010. Ranjan was the executive director and chief financial officer of HDFC.
Lord Jo Johnson, younger brother of former British prime minister Boris Johnson, has resigned his non-executive directorship of a UK-based investment firm linked with the now-withdrawn Adani Enterprises Follow-on Public Offer (FPO). 'The Financial Times' newspaper referenced UK Companies House records to reveal that 51-year-old Lord Johnson had been appointed as a director of London-based Elara Capital Plc in June last year and resigned on Wednesday, the day when the Adani Group announced withdrawal of the FPO. Elara, which described itself as a capital markets business raising funds for Indian corporates, was among the bookrunners on the FPO.
'Being financially independent is crucial.' 'This spares women a lot of grief if the marriage, especially in large business families, breaks down.'
At the annual general meeting (AGM) of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday, shareholders made the usual request to the top management for bonus shares. But this time, the setting was different. The man at the helm, outgoing group chairman AM Naik, 82, was heard assuring shareholders that he would join the chorus soon. There were laughs and chuckles at Naik's playful remark as he addressed the last AGM, nearly six decades after he joined L&T as a junior engineer and some 25 years at the top.
An expert committee, set up by the Supreme Court to probe allegations against the Adani group following a bombshell report from a US short seller, has members with potential conflict of interest, a fresh petition filed in the apex court on Monday said.
Growing up in the Mumbai of 1970s, Uday Kotak aspired to be a cricketer and trained under legendary coach Ramakant Aachrekar. However, it was an on-field injury which resulted in a shift to finance. He started off with bill discounting, turned to lending and successfully applied to start a universal bank in the first decade of the millennium, as India was warming up to private play in banking.
Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty pared early gains to close marginally lower in highly volatile trade on Thursday due to losses in Larsen & Toubro and cautious trading ahead of the release of domestic inflation data. The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 35.68 points or 0.06 per cent to settle at 61,904.52 after hitting the crucial 62,000 mark in opening deals. During the day, it hit a low of 61,823.07 and a high of 62,168.22.
"I've really enjoyed my time at the ECB and am proud of having contributed to a successful period for our England teams. With increasing commitments outside of the organisation, sadly I've decided it's time to step away from my current role," read a statement from Strauss on Friday.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given HDFC Bank six months to migrate HDFC's home loan customers to external benchmark linked lending rate (EBLR), top sources in the bank told Business Standard. Almost half of HDFC's 5.4 million customers are home loan customers. It is mandatory for banks to link retail loans and loans to micro, medium and small enterprises to an external benchmark. Non-banking financial companies do not have such a mandate.
The Reserve Bank of India on Monday gave banks time till end of December 2023 to complete renewal of agreements for the existing safe deposit lockers of customers. Banks were earlier required to complete the process by January 01, 2023. The central bank has asked them to complete work in phases with intermediate milestones of 50 per cent by June 30, and 75 per cent by September 30.
Pilots working with Air India have warned of non-co-operation if restoration of pre-Covid overtime allowance is delayed, and if other practices they say are 'discriminatory' continues. "We cannot assure that our members will undertake flying duties exceeding 70 hours a month. Any coercive action by the management will lead to industrial action to safeguard flight safety and well-being of our members," the Indian Commercial Pilots Association and the Indian Pilots Guild said in a joint letter to Air India's management on Tuesday.
Till now, there was no provision in the Companies Act that allowed a remuneration for the non-executive director if the company was in loss or had inadequate profits. Only the executive director was entitled for a remuneration in the event of a loss.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani for the second year in a row drew no salary from his flagship firm Reliance Industries in the last fiscal as he voluntarily gave up remuneration in light of the pandemic hitting the business and economy. In its latest annual report, Reliance said Ambani's remuneration for the financial year 2020-21 was "nil". In June 2020, Mukesh D Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, voluntarily decided to forego his salary for the year 2020-21, in light of the COVID-19 outbreak in India, which exacted a huge toll on the societal, economic and industrial health of the nation.
India Inc is staring at significantly higher compliance and governance costs, following the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) latest tightening of disclosure norms and regulations around the filling of key positions, the materiality of information, and third-party transfers. Recently, the securities market regulator amended the Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) to introduce a raft of changes that will affect how listed companies go about transparency and disclosures. The new framework will further empower public shareholders and soon move towards a 'comply or be penalised regime or comply or explain' in the case of high-value debt-listed entities.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's children -- Isha, Akash and Anant -- on Monday were appointed on the board of his energy-to-technology conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, in what is seen as a clear path of succession planning at India's most valuable company.
Noted industrialist Rahul Bajaj will step down as non-executive chairman of Bajaj Finance on July 31, after being at the helm of the company for over three decades.
The Reserve Bank has found gaps in banks' corporate governance despite issuing guidelines on the matter, Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Monday. Addressing directors of bank boards, Das said such gaps, which have been mitigated, could have caused "some degree of volatility". He also hit out strongly against "smart accounting" to conceal stress and bloat financial performance.
In FY23, the State Bank of India (SBI) reported a 57.4 per cent jump in its net profit to Rs 55,684.17 crore. But the chairman of the country's largest bank, Dinesh Khara's annual pay for this creditable performance was just Rs 37 lakh (his peers at state-run banks are no better off). Look at his private bank rivals - most pocketed in excess of Rs 7 crore annually - plus stock options.
Amid an existential crisis facing the firm over Rs 50,000 crore unpaid dues towards the government, billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla on Wednesday stepped down as the chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd. Birla -- who had in June offered to give away his holding in the joint venture with Britain's Vodafone to the government -- will cease to be a director and non-executive chairman of the company at the end of business hours on Wednesday, VIL said in a filing to the stock exchanges. It did not give any reason for Birla's decision. He will be replaced by Himanshu Kapania (who was earlier managing director and CEO of Birla's Idea Cellular) as the new chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd.
A Delhi court on Wednesday sent former MD and CEO of National Stock Exchange Ravi Narain to two days' custodial interrogation by Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case related to alleged illegal phone tapping and snooping on stock exchange employees. Special Judge Sunena Sharma allowed ED's plea seeking Narain's custody till September 9 after the accused was produced before him by the probe agency. ED's Special Public Prosecutor N K Matta told the court that Narain was required to be confronted with other accused persons and evidence in the matter to unearth the larger conspiracy in the matter.
Strong Q3 brings Infosys comfort amid macro risks.
As part of the exercise, each family will get complete ownership of the businesses it manages while scrapping the holding company.
The other board members will be Sunil Mehta, former non-executive chairman of Punjab National Bank, as the non executive chairman of Yes Bank, Mahesh Krishnamurthy and Atul Bheda as non-executive directors.
In 2020-21, business activities were hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Biyani's annual remuneration stood at Rs 3.86 crore in 2019-20, according to Future Retail Ltd's (FRL) annual report for 2020-21. FRL's managing director Rakesh Biyani also saw his remuneration decline by 4.82 per cent to Rs 3.75 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2021.
Jamshed J Irani, known as the steel man of India, died in Jamshedpur late Monday night, Tata Steel said. He was 86. "The Steel Man of India passes away. It is with profound grief that Tata Steel informs of the demise of Padma Bhushan Dr Jamshed J Irani," Tata Steel said in a statement. He passed away on October 31, 2022 at 10 PM at TMH (Tata Hospital) in Jamshedpur, it said.
Rahul Bajaj, one of the most successful business leaders in the country, has finally decided to hang his boots at Bajaj Auto, the company he nurtured and steered to one of the leading firms in two and three-wheeler space. The non-executive chairman of the Pune-based two and three-wheeler maker has tendered his resignation which would come into effect from close of business hours on April 30, 2021, Bajaj Auto said in a regulatory filing. In place of Rahul Bajaj, the company has appointed Niraj Bajaj as chairman with effect from May 1, 2021, it added.
Open order books in February breach 700,000; wait period for some models exceed a year.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T), India's largest construction and engineering player, has lost as many as 14 large orders in the country because companies that don't possess adequate technical expertise and experience, of late, have won the projects by bidding lower, claimed A M Naik, non-executive chairman of L&T. But the company has made up for the losses by winning projects overseas, where it has acquired a sizeable market share amid tough competition from large global players, he said.
The SC bench said that the Yog Guru cannot "abuse the doctors and the systems (of treatment)..It is better to restrain him".
Capital markets regulator Sebi on Thursday sent a notice to NSE's former chief Ravi Narain, asking him to pay Rs 2.06 crore in a case related to governance lapses at the stock exchange, and warned of arrest and attachment of assets and bank accounts if he fails to make the payment within 15 days. The notice came after Narain failed to pay the fine imposed on him by SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India). The regulator, through an order passed on February 11, levied a fine of Rs 2 crore on Narain in the matter of governance issues over the appointment of the chief strategic officer at the stock exchange in 2013.
The Enforcement Directorate's (ED's) chargesheet in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) illegal phone-tapping case points to insider trading during the tenures of Chitra Ramkrishna and Ravi Narain as managing director and chief executive officer of the bourse. The federal agency will soon be sharing the details with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for further inquiry, two people aware of the findings told Business Standard. The ED, which filed its prosecution complaint (commonly known as chargesheet), alleged that Narain and Ramkrishna were the "key conspirators" and had assisted iSec Services to generate money to the tune of Rs 24 crore for exchanging crucial information, the people said.
ITC Ltd on Friday reported a 23.09 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 5,070.09 crore for the third quarter ended December 2022, helped by growth momentum across its operating segments. The diversified company had posted a net profit of Rs 4,118.80 crore during the October-December quarter of the previous fiscal, ITC said in a regulatory filing. Its revenue from operations was up 3.56 per cent to Rs 19,020.65 crore during the quarter under review, as against Rs 18,365.80 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Shareholders of Tata Sons, the holding company and promoter of Tata group companies, have approved the reappointment of N Chandrasekaran as chairman for another five-year term despite its single largest shareholder the Shapoorji Pallonji family abstaining from voting, according to sources. In February this year, the Board of Tata Sons had approved the reappointment of Chandrasekaran as executive chairman for another five years till February 2027, subject to shareholders' approval. At the shareholders meeting held on Monday, the proposal for Chandrasekaran's reappointment for a second term needed more than 50 per cent of votes as it was an ordinary resolution.
In the previous fiscal year, he drew a Rs 15 crore salary from the company -- the same as in the previous 11 years.
Grounded carrier Jet Airways on Friday announced the appointment of Sanjiv Kapoor as the chief executive officer. His appointment to the post comes days after the airline brought in former Sri Lankan Airlines CEO Vipula Gunatileka as the chief financial officer. Kapoor, who is currently the president of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts, has been associated with budget carriers SpiceJet and GoAir as well as with full-service carrier Vistara in various capacities in the past.
The government on Wednesday announced the appointment of veteran banker K V Kamath as chairperson of the newly set up Rs 20,000 crore development finance institution NaBFID to catalyse investment in the funds-starved infrastructure sector. Parliament had in March cleared the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill 2021 to support the development of long-term non-recourse infrastructure financing in India, including the development of the bonds and derivatives markets necessary for infrastructure financing.
The talk of governance reforms at public-sector banks seems to remain on paper, as a majority of them continue to be working with just a handful board members. Half of the board seat at these banks have been vacant. Ten of the 12 public-sector banks, even large ones like Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank and Union Bank of India - all except State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda - don't even have a chairman. In 2014, while splitting the post of chairman & managing director (CMD), the government had decided to appoint non-executive chairmen at these banks. SBI, which has an executive chairman and four managing directors, was an exception.
Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani on Friday resigned as director of Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure, following markets regulator Sebi order restraining him from associating with any listed company. "Anil D Ambani, non-executive director, steps down from the board of Reliance Power in compliance of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) interim order," Reliance Power said in a BSE filing. In a separate filing to the stock exchange, Reliance Infrastructure said that Anil Ambani has stepped down from its board "in compliance of SEBI interim order".
