Results of UWB poll postponed, ball now in Company Law Board court

Geeta Nair

Pune, Aug 26: THE round one battle results for the control of the United Western Bank between the Sicom-Makharia combine and the existing board of the United Western Bank Limited has been put in a limbo.

After the stormy 64th AGM of the bank at its HQ in Satara action now moves to the Company Law Board in Delhi. CLB member CR Mehta, who chaired the AGM and conducted the polls decided to directly present his report to the CLB. So, no official announcement of the results of the poll was made.

The CLB has in its interim order restricted implementation of any resolution effecting a change in composition of the Board till the petitions before the Principal Bench was disposed off.

Bank officials refused to comment on the outcome of the polls. The final composition of the board will be confirmed only after the CLB decides on the pending petitions. CLB is scheduled to hear the case on September 11, 2001.

The directors who faced re-election were AS Sathe, KR Chandratare, GA Lele, Prabha Kulkarni, Mahesh Athavale, AKD Jadhav and Sharad Upasani. The new nominees put up by the Sicom-Makharia combines was S Jambunathan and Ramesh Venkat.

The resolution to re-appoint seven existing directors and two new directors was put to vote on August 23. The voting went on till late in the night. The marathon scrutiny of proxies which started yesterday night went on till late evening on August 24.

Meanwhile, the Makharia group, that holds a 17.5 per cent stake in the Bank has been alleging that the bank was being mismanaged and the employees trust was being misused. Makharia has the support of Sicom which owns 9.91 per cent stake.

The UWB Employees Trust holds eight per cent in the bank. With the top management of the bank embroiled in a battle for the control of the bank performance has taken a back seat and taken heavy toll of the bank’s balance sheet.Year 2000-2001 saw UWB posting losses for the first time in its entire existence. The year’s losses was Rs 15 crore compared to a profit of Rs 55.70 crore last year.

NPAs grew by 123 per cent to Rs 253 crore from previous year’s Rs 113 crore. The bank has also taken severe beating in the secondary market operations.

The bank’s ESOP scheme implemented by forming a Trust has also runt into trouble. RBI objected to the bank lending money to the trust for picking up shares of UWB from the secondary market for subsequent allotment to employees. The bank was forced to make provisions of Rs 7.43 crore towards this.