LVB shareholders reject reappointment of CEO, directors

At the bank’s AGM, held on September 25, the shareholders also voted against the resolution for the appointment of statutory and branch auditors. In case of the appointment of seven directors, 19 pc of the votes polled belonging to the promoter/promoter group were against but the remaining 81 per cent in favour.

 As per regulatory filing, there are 25 shareholders under the category promoter and promoter

 group. The public institutions (99 pc votes cast) and public non-institutional shareholders (62 pc votes cast) voted against the resolutions for appointment of directors and auditors. The shareholders had also voted out Interim MD-CEO S Sundar, who was appointed in January this year. The directors who would cease to hold the post after the rejection are N Saiprasad, Gorinka Jaganmohan Rao, Raghuraj Gujjar, Pradeep, BK Manjunath and YN Lakshminarayana Murthy.

 In the case of appointment of Independent Directors (Shakti Sinha, Satish Kumar Kalra and Meeta Makhan), raising of additional capital, borrowing limits and for amendment of Memorandum of Association for increasing the authorised capital, the votes cast in favour were almost 100 pc. The development comes at a time when the bank is going through a tough phase and is in talks for a merger with Clix Capital. In a regulatory filing on September 15, LVB said the mutual due diligence with Clix Capital is “substantially complete”, and the parties are in discussions on the next steps.

 Meanwhile, LVB has tried to allay the fears, saying it has a “fully functional” board, including three independent directors. It is in a comfortable liquidity position as on date with Liquidity Coverage Ratio over the minimum 100 pc as prescribed by the RBI. “Certain news items have appeared, expressing concerns about governance of the bank, based on voting results of the 93rd Annual General Meeting where reappointment of 7 directors were not approved. However, the Bank continues to have a fully functional Board of Directors including 3 independent directors,” LVB said in a regulatory filing on Sunday.