Ujjivan Financial Services' minority shareholders have rejected a special resolution to appoint founder and chairman Samit Ghosh as managing director and chief executive officer of the company, according to results of the e-voting sent to stock exchanges.
Also, shareholders didn't approve the special resolution to re-appoint Abhijit Sen as an independent director.
Both resolutions received 70 percent of the valid votes in favour. However, these being special resolutions in nature, required a minimum of 75 percent of the valid votes polled in favour of the resolution or a minimum of three times of the votes polled against the resolution, the company secretary informed the exchanges.
Shareholders passed the appointment of Sunil Vinayak Patel and Rajesh Kumar Jogi as independent directors with the requisite majority through ordinary resolutions.
Minority shareholders upset
Ghosh, who will continue as the chairman of the company, told Moneycontrol that minority shareholders were probably upset with the share price performance during the COVID period. The company will select another candidate for the MD&CEO post within the next six months or so, Ghosh said.
"The company wanted me to fill the MD&CEO post temporarily along with my current position as the chairman. This is because Ittira Davis, former MD&CEO, moved to join the board of Ujjivan Small Finance Bank as part-time chairman and the position fell vacant. But, since the minority shareholders didn't approve the proposal, the 75 percent
cutoff for the special resolution wasn't met," Ghosh said.
Ujjivan Financial closed at Rs 207.35 per share compared with its 52-week high of Rs 310.85. Ghosh founded Ujjivan in 2005 as a pioneer microfinance institution for the urban poor. He is a career banker for over 30 years and has worked in South Asia and the Middle East.
Ghosh started his career with Citibank in 1975 and co-pioneered consumer banking in India in 1985. Further, he led the launch of retail banking for Standard Chartered Bank in the Middle East and South Asia, and for HDFC Bank in India. His last assignment was with Bank Muscat as their chief executive (India).
Ghosh holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as the president of Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN) and chairman of the Association of Karnataka Microfinance Institutions (AKMI). Ghosh is also on the board of Stichting to Promote Women's World Banking (SWWB).
Ujjivan Financial Services reported a consolidated loss of Rs 490.73 crore in the third quarter ended in December 2020. The company had registered a net profit of Rs 74.97 crore in the year-ago quarter. The company's total income during the October-December period grew by 3.6 percent to Rs 792.08 crore as against Rs 764.71 crore a year ago.
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