The heating up of the tussle at BharatPe, involving Founder & MD Ashneer Grover, will not have any adverse impact on Unity Small Finance Bank (USFB) in which the fintech unicorn has a 49 per cent stake, according to , chairman of Centrum Capital which is the bank’s promoter.
“Our partnership (with BharatPe) is with the funds that manage billions of dollars across the world like Sequoia that own around 85 per cent of the company. What happens within the company regarding Ashneer Grover, Madhuri Jain – or any other employee and founder – is their internal matter,” said Bindra.
“BharatPe is a shareholder in the bank and we have got their money. But there is nothing beyond that as they don’t even yet have a representative on the bank’s board,” he added.
Over the past couple of months, BharatPe has been embroiled in a fight with Ashneer Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain on one side and the company’s investors, independent directors and other co-founders on another. On Wednesday, the company confirmed that it had sacked Grover’s wife as its head of controls after reports emerged alleging financial irregularities on the duo’s watch.
USFB, promoted by Centrum with BharatPe as a 'joint investor', was granted a banking licence in October 2021. It started functioning on November 1 last year with shareholder capital of Rs 1,100 and an asset base of over Rs 2,400 crore. The promoter and investor have committed a total capital infusion of up to Rs 3,000 crore.
In January, the government had approved the takeover of crisis-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank by USFB. The newly formed SFB has said earlier that around 110 branches of the merged bank and over 1,100 of its employees will operate under the new label now.
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