New Delhi: Shareholders of ICICI Securities have voted in favour of reappointing Chanda Kochhar as the company’s chairperson, according to a regulatory filing. ICICI Securities’ promoter (ICICI Bank) and promoter group have voted 100% in favour of Kochhar’s reappointment.
The ICICI Bank MD and CEO is on an absence of leave from office, pending an investigation into allegations of her having favoured family members in lieu of providing loans to a corporate house.
The shareholders of ICICI Securities at its 23rd annual general meeting held yesterday passed the resolution to re-appoint Kochhar as the chairperson of the ICICI Bank subsidiary. She received nearly 97.7 per cent of the votes in favour of her reappointment, ICICI Securities said in a late night filing on Thursday.
“In the absence of Chanda Kochhar, chairperson, Vinod Kumar Dhall was designated by the board of directors of the company as the chairman of the meeting,” it said in the filing. Kochhar expressed her inability to attend the meeting, ICICI Securities said.
Earlier this month, Kochhar had offered herself to be reappointed on the board of ICICI Securities.
It has been alleged that Kochhar’s family members, including her husband Deepak Kochhar, received financial favours from borrowers against loans sanctioned by ICICI Bank. Sebi has served a notice on Kochhar over dealings of the bank with the Videocon group and Nupower, a firm controlled by her husband.
An independent probe has also been launched by the ICICI Bank board to look into the matter.
There are eight members on the board of ICICI Securities, of which four are independent directors, two are non-executive non-independent directors who are nominated by ICICI Bank and two are whole-time directors. Two members, managing director & CEO Shilpa Kumar and executive director Ajay Saraf, are the whole-time directors on the board of ICICI Securities.
ICICI Securities, headquartered in Mumbai, offers financial services, including brokerage, financial product distribution and investment banking, catering to both retail and institutional clients. During 2017-18, the company was listed on the stock exchanges. The IPO was completed through an offer-for-sale by holding company ICICI Bank.
The ICICI Securities stock was trading 1.31 per cent up at Rs 331.50 on the BSE on Friday afternoon.