Yes Bank board approves ₹10,000 cr funding, rejects Braich’s $1.2-bn offer
However, the bank is favourably considering the offer by CitaxYet another agenda of the board meeting was Uttam Prakash Agarwal quitting as independent director citing corporate governance concerns
PremiumMumbai: The board of private lender Yes Bank met on Friday and approved raising of funds of up to ₹10,000 crore in one or more tranches through a qualified institutional placement (QIP), or any other private placement of equity or debt, the bank said.
On 30 November, Yes Bank said that a number of investors had shown interest in buying Yes Bank equities worth $2 billion.
The bank had then claimed that it was in discussions with the family office of Erwin Singh Braich/SPGP Holdings and the investors had shown an interest in investing $1.2 billion through a binding offer.
Additionally, the bank had said it had received interest from the family office of Citax Holdings Ltd and Citax Investment Group for an investment of $500 million.
On Friday, Yes Bank said its board will not proceed with the offer made by Erwin Singh Braich/SPGP Holdings. However, the bank is favourably considering the offer by Citax and the final decision regarding the allotment will be taken in the next board meeting.
Yet another agenda of the board meeting was the resignation of the bank’s audit committee chairman Uttam Prakash Agarwal, who stepped down as an independent director citing concerns regarding corporate governance and management practices.
Mint had first reported on 24 November on the questions raised against Agarwal’s appointment.
The Mint report had said that the Reserve Bank of India had asked Yes Bank to re-examine the “fit and proper" status of Agarwal after he was found to have failed to disclose details of criminal cases filed against him.
This came in the wake of a whistleblower complaint questioning Agarwal’s “fit and proper" status, which the bank received in November 2018, soon after he was appointed as an independent director during the tenure of co-founder and former managing director Rana Kapoor.
On Thursday, Agarwal stated in a letter to the bank and regulators: “There are serious concerns as regards deteriorating standards of the corporate governance, failure of compliance, management practices and the manner in which the state of affairs of the company are being conducted by Ravneet Gill, MD & CEO, Rajeev Uberoi, senior group president governance & controls, Sanjay Nambiar, legal head and board of directors."
In an interview with CNBC-TV18 on Friday, the audit committee chairman said the management of Yes Bank had failed to disclose the identity of investors and the binding agreement to the board. He added that he had expressed his concerns to the board twice before resigning.
On Friday, however, the bank said that it was reviewing Agarwal’s “fit and proper" status as directed by the Reserve Bank of India.
“In this respect, the Bank had obtained legal opinions from eminent jurists. These opinions were to be considered by the Nomination and Remuneration Committee of the Board (“NRC")/ the Board of the Bank in their meetings scheduled for today, i.e., January 10, 2020. However, prior to the commencement of the proceedings of these meetings, the Bank received the resignation of Mr. Agarwal," the bank said in a notice to the exchanges.
Yes Bank shares on Friday lost 5.29% to close at ₹44.80 per share on the BSE. The benchmark index gained 147.37 points to end the day at 41,599.72.
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