Bank of Baroda’s chief P.S. Jayakumar likely to get an extension
Jayakumar, whose term ends in September, said to have expressed willingness to continue
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Mumbai: The centre is likely to extend the tenure of Bank of Baroda’s (BoB) managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) P.S. Jayakumar, whose three-year term is set to expire in September, said two people familiar with the matter.
Jayakumar, who was earlier not very keen on his extension, has expressed his willingness to continue, the people mentioned above added, requesting anonymity.
However, even as his tenure is extended, it is unclear as of now whether he will be given a two-year extension. Last month, the government extended the terms of Canara Bank non-executive chairman T.N. Manoharan and Bank of India’s non-executive chairman G. Padmanabhan by two years.
“Mr. Jayakumar has not discussed in a public forum regarding the extension of his term in Bank of Baroda. At this stage we are not in a position to comment on the accuracy of the news, as it is the policy of the bank to not respond to speculative news," said a BoB spokesperson.
Jayakumar’s extension comes at a time when 10 public sector banks (PSB) are functioning without a head. The Bank Boards Bureau has recommended 15 names for the posts of managing directors and chief executive directors (CEOs) of these PSBs. The final decision is, however, awaited on the appointments.
Jayakumar joined the bank on 13 October 2015—one of the two private sector professionals picked by the government to head a PSU bank. Rakesh Sharma of Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd was the other banker, appointed as the head of Canara Bank.
Before joining BoB, Jayakumar founded VBHC Value Homes Pvt. Ltd along with Jaithirth Rao. A career banker, Jayakumar spent 23 years with Citigroup Inc. in India and Singapore in different capacities. During his stint at BoB, Jayakumar introduced several changes, including redrawing the road map for its retail business, upgrading its technology infrastructure, unwinding of unprofitable foreign operations and cleaning up of the bank’s balance sheet.
According to a 12 June Mint article, Jayakumar was considered to be one of the front runners to succeed Shikha Sharma at Axis bank. He had, however, said that he had “neither considered, applied, approached, nor met anyone" in connection with the role for MD and CEO of Axis Bank.
“Jayakumar was able to carry out changes in the way the bank was doing business and that has started getting reflected in its operational performance. At the same time he has also been able to clean up the balance sheet of the bank to a great extent," said Ashutosh Mishra, banking analyst, Reliance Securities.
The lender had reported over a two-fold increase in its quarterly profit to ₹ 528 crore in the June quarter, compared to ₹ 203 crore posted in the year ago period due to the fall in provisions.
The profit was mainly driven by the bank’s healthy net interest income.
BoB’s gross non-performing assets stood at 12.46% in the first quarter compared to 11.40% in the three months ended June 2017.
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