Last week, one of the country’s top women bankers, Archana Bhargava, tendered in her voluntary resignation as chairperson and managing director of United Bank of India, a year ahead of the expiry of her tenure.
The news came amid rising troubles for the state-run lender, which has come perilously close to flirting with the collapse line, even as news reports are emerging of a deep-running malaise of asset mismanagement, under-reporting of financials and activities that may not necessarily qualify as legal.
But more unsavory are details coming out about the chequered career of the former boss who won admirers for her go-getting ways as much as she came in for criticism for pushing the line of acceptable.
A gold medalist biochemist by education, she worked in a bevy of public banks in varying roles and her journey to the top was characteristic of a woman in hurry, according to an Economic Times feature, who could “get work done” even in the staid PSU culture.
And while it would be a exaggeration to state Bhargava was responsible for the non-performing asset mess that United Bank finds itself in -- hers was only a 10-month stint after she came in after serving as Canara Bank’s executive director -- the stark worsening in the bank’s state of finances coincides directly with her tenure.
In the first quarter on Bhargava’s watch, United Bank’s profits fell 74 percent to Rs 44 crore (from Rs 174 crore in the year-ago quarter), after which it notched up losses of Rs 489 crore and Rs 1,238 crore.
In three quarters, gross NPAs shot up from Rs 2,963 crore to Rs 8,545 crore, while its capital adequacy ratio (comprising of Tier I and II capital) fell to 9.01 percent, close to the 9 percent required by international Basel norms. An investigation by the Reserve Bank of India is on to find out what went on.
But the ET report lists several things about Bhargava -- reportedly christened Jhansi Ki Rani by some colleagues for her aggressive style of doing business -- that may not qualify as becoming of a top banker: the least being sending subordinates on a hunt to look for her missing dog.
But more than that, it is reports of a known past willingness of the banker to classify good loans as bad and speculation that the Central Vigilance Commission had found her not fit to lead a bank (including a negative appraisal from her own boss at Canara Bank), which may likely to raise eyebrows.
A Business Standard report attributes her resignation to a rift between other top executives over classification of assets and reporting of NPAs rather than her cited reason of “ill-health”.
Whatever the case may be, it is likely the former banker has walked into the sunset quietly but certainly not in a blaze of glory.
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