Gillette India chairman Saroj Poddar remains confident of retaining his position as chairman of Gillette India despite Sebi?s directive to parent company Procter and Gamble to dilute promoter stake and increase the minimum public shareholding to 25%.
Gillette India chairman Saroj Poddar told FE the promoters would discuss the ways of diluting stake next month to increase public holding through an offer for sale. P&G has not been willing to reduce its own holding in Gillette India and was seeking an exemption to Sebi?s minimum public shareholding norms, which has been denied.
As a way to comply with the norms P&G had proposed that the Indian promoter, Saroj Poddar, sell his 4% stake to P&G at a 25% premium, give up control and certain statutory rights in the company and terminate the existing share holder?s agreement.
P&G would then offload part of the shares bought from Poddar along with about 5% of its holding in Gillette India, to meet the mandatory 25% public holding. The promoters would have to offer around 9% to raise non-promoters and public holding to 25% from 16.25% at present.
However, if Poddar were to give up statutory rights and terminate existing shareholder agreements, his shareholding would be considered as public shareholding. In such a scenario P&G would have only had to dilute their holding in Gillette India by 4.77%