Governance wake up call!

Q: Are investors ready to step up?

Singhania: It is a good start. At least on the quality front, I don't think either the investment community or the companies are right now ready to really go all out and say that we are doing the best possible as far as the environment is concerned.

Thermal power plants might be a pollutant but for India to go forward you will need to have these plants for the next 15-20 years.
Q: We should demand better standards of governance?
Singhania: Definitely. We should keep on improving.

Q: Every mutual fund, which I have spoken to in the last two days about these new rules that Sebi has introduced, has grumbled saying they have shifted the owners of governance on to us. 'Do we really want to publish our voting pattern? No, we do not really want to do this. How we will get out of this?'

Singhania: We would love to do it. We are all in for it and we will love to do it.

Q: Do you think this is going to be a game changing situation?

Shroff: It is a game changer, so it is definitely a game changer. It is a game changer undoubtedly.

Matthan: The fact that voting history is going to be a matter of public record will allow people who are investing in mutual funds to actually make some decision. These are not necessarily only NAV based but this is a kind of fund that I want to invest and this is a type of fund that invest in certain types of projects.

Q: What is your experience of investors that come to you? I am not talking about the small community of ethical investors whose goal is to ensure that they only invest in companies within certain parameters?

Chatterjee: The first thing that I was saying that it is our responsibility is to first talk about it before somebody ask you about it. So, you start off with our vision to say what you are doing on safety, what you are doing on environment, what are the projects, what are the difficulties.

Q: Are Indian investors interested in knowing any of these aspects or are they only interested in the numbers and bottomline?

Chatterjee: They certainly do not walk out when I talk about it. So, I assume they are interested. But today and tomorrow when we are looking at large projects, there is a world of equity investors and even multilateral agencies which do financial closure of large projects. They certainly look at the environmental standards, certainly look at what is the kind of safety standards in their diligence. I do not think if Indian companies are going to set up large projects. If you are going to access multilateral capital, this is a part of the diligence process that has to happen.