Mumbai: Yes Bank Ltd is likely to name independent director Brahm Dutt as the bank’s non-executive interim chairman after former finance secretary Ashok Chawla resigned from the position last month. Two people with direct knowledge of the development confirmed this, adding that a formal announcement on the appointment of Brahm Dutt is likely to be made next week after RBI approves the bank’s board’s decision.
At 10.30am, Yes Bank shares recovered and was trading 1.3% higher to ₹177 a share. Earlier, it opened 2% lower. India’s benchmark Sensex was up 0.2% to 36,000.80 points.
Brahm Dutt is a former bureaucrat and is one of the oldest members of Yes Bank’s board.
Dutt, an IAS officer for 37 years, has been an independent director on the bank’s board since 24 July 2013. He held several posts in the state government of Karnataka as well as in the central government and rose to the level of secretary to Government of India. Before retirement from the service, he worked as secretary in the cabinet secretariat and in the ministry of road transport and highways.
Yes Bank had on Thursday, informed the stock exchanges that it is yet to finalise a candidate to succeed Rana Kapoor as managing director and chief executive officer and will submit a name to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) after its 9 January board meeting.
Yes Bank’s board has witnessed a series of resignations over the past couple of months. Apart from Ashok Chawla, who resigned as chairman on 14 November, independent directors Vasant Gujarathi and R. Chandrasekhar also put in their papers last month. Separately, O.P. Bhatt—an external expert on the CEO search panel—also resigned.
These resignations following the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) direction on 17 September to restrict CEO Rana Kapoor’s term to 31 January 2019 has resulted in a correction of the bank’s stock.
Despite the bank’s two promoters Rana Kapoor and Madhu Kapur initiating talks to settle their decade old family feud, over the past two weeks, the bank’s shares have fallen 51% from its peak this year on BSE Ltd.
In a bid to restore investor confidence and arrest the fall in the bank’s stock, Kapoor was expected to update the bank’s shareholders about the recently initiated truce process between the two estranged promoter families.