MUMBAI:
ICICI Bank may adopt a system of having a rotating chairman to head board meetings until a full-time chairman is in place. Current chairman MK Sharma will retire this month-end.
According to sources, the board will nominate an independent director as chairman for its next meeting after Sharma’s term comes to an end. Besides Sharma, the six independent directors on the board of the bank include Uday Chitale, Dileep Choksi, Neelam Dhawan, M D Mallya, Radhakrishnan Nair and V K Sharma.
The board will play an important role considering that the bank CEO
Chanda Kochhar is on indefinite leave pending an investigation into conflict of interest charges on loans to Videocon Industries. The day-to-day operations and crucial decisions relating to resolution of large non-performing assets under the insolvency process will have to be taken by the top management led by newly-appointed chief operating officer Sandeep Bakhshi.
The inquiry into allegations against Kocchar is being led by Justice BN Srikrishna, who will be assisted by Luthra & Luthra a law firm and Control Risks – a risk assessment firm. The final report could take months rather than days considering that allegations pertain to transactions more than a decade old.
The market has responded positively to the new management structure. On Wednesday afternoon the stock was up nearly 2 per cent at Rs 299 in a flat market.
