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Stake sale in IFCI irreversible, says MD

NEW DELHI: The recent resignations by two of its top executives notwithstanding, the strategic sale of IFCI’s equity stake is “irreversible” and the country’s oldest financial institution is working towards rebuilding itself on its core competencies.

Addressing IFCI shareholders at the annual general meeting here on Friday, the company’s CEO and Managing Director, Atul Kumar Rai, said: “[The] strategic sale of 26 per cent [of IFCI equity] is irreversible...We will make it happen within indicative timeline”.

IFCI, Mr Rai said, was in the process of exploring various business models to reorient itself based on its core competencies which, besides its employees, were long-term financing and institution building. Without going into the details of the business models, he indicated that the company was working on various strategies to unlock values and a part of this could be reflected in the second quarter results.

Mr. Rai asserted that the recent resignations by N. Balasubramanian as Chairman and Vinayak Chatterjee as Director on the IFCI’s board would not have any effect on the process of stake sale. On the contrary, the fact that the two top executives put in their papers on their own, without anyone asking for their resignations, show that the “stake sale process is transparent and fair,” he said.

Both Mr Balasubramanian and Mr Chatterjee, it may be recalled, quit over the issue of their associations with bidders. While Mr Balasubramanian is associated as advisor to Standard Chartered Bank which is a partner in a bidder consortium having submitted its ‘expression of interest’ (EoI), Mr Chatterjee happens to be the Chairman of Feedback Ventures in which HDFC and IDFC have stakes and the two, in turn, have evinced interest in picking up IFCI’s 26 per cent stake.

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