Chennai, July 5: Trouble at the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank (TMB) does not seem to abate. The Nadar Mahajana Bank Share Investors Forum Nadar community which succesfully prevented the entries of Ruias and Sivasankarans from taking over the bank now face hurdles from compatriots. Six board of directors, in the 11-member board, are said to be acting against the interests of the Nadar community and favouring one member of the community. The Tamil Nadu Nadar Youth Forum has demanded their resignation as they do not have any significant shareholding in the bank. The forum has threatened to begin a struggle unto victory from July 19 in front of the TMB head office in Tuticorin."About three lakh community members would converge into the port town from all over Tamil Nadu and they will not return home unless their demand is achieved," the forum officials told a press conference here on Monday. H Sudarsan, president, G Karikolraj, secretary, A Narayanan, executive secretary of the forum, and Bal Prajapathi Adigalar,political advisor of the forum, addressed the meet.
TMB had a 13-member board besides the chairman. Two seats are lying vacant and now there are only 11 members on the board. Of these, three are RBI nominees. Six members, N Vikraman, C Amarnath, Ganesan K Chezhiyan, S Kanakasabhapathy, Natarajan and Rangabashyam are said to be relatives or associates of G Kathiresan who had sold his 23 per cent holding in the bank to the Essar group four years ago. Two others, Vetriselvan and S Sathyaseelan are supporters of the Nadar Forum.
"We supported the Kathiresan team to fight an outside enemy. But now he is turning against the community," the forum officals said, adding that "the majority board members have no significant stake in the bank but want to control it. The forum will never allow that."
The bank should belong to the community as the youth have been raising funds for the retrieval of the bank shares on the slogan of `one share for one family', they said. On this slogan already 35,000 shares have beensold at the rate of Rs 5,500.
As per the accord reached between the share investors forum and the Sterling group on June 24, the 1,94,450 share certificates, constituting 67.29 per cent of TMB's equity held by the NRI, Sivasankaran, was handed over to B Ramachandra Adityan, chairman, Nadar Mahajana Share Investors' Forum on Sunday. He paid Rs 20 crore as a token advance for the repurchasing of the shares. The forum has to collect Rs 90 crore from the community in nine months. The youth forum is hopeful of doing that.
Sterling group had agreed to sell the shares for Rs 155 crore. The agreement provides for the forum to pay Rs 110 crore for 1,42,280 shares representing 50.1 per cent. The balance or 17.28 per cent will be offered to financial institutions for Rs 45 crore.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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