Sucheta Dalal :SSL Board to meet tomorrow
Sucheta Dalal

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SSL Board to meet tomorrow  

Jun 22, 2007



 

SSL Board to meet on 23 June

Major Management Changes in Offing

 

The board of directors of SHCIL Services Ltd (SSL), the alienated subsidiary of Stock Holding Corporation of India (SHCIL), will be held at 10.30 a.m. tomorrow at its office at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai.

Although everybody is very quiet about it, we learn that the meeting was called at the instance of SHCIL and may see some important management changes and possibly the induction of several new directors. For starters, the Singapore based Ramaswamy Ravindran has already tendered his resignation and raised some pertinent questions about who is in charge of the company.

We learn that Ravindran’s resignation says, “To date I have not been informed who is running the company as SHCIL has officially removed the two directors of SHCIL on the board of  SHCIL Services Ltd aB their staff. It is clear that both Jayaraman and Ramanathan do not represent SHCIL's interest on the Board of SHCIL Services Ltd.” He suggests that SHCIL has been asked to appoint new directors in the place of Jayaraman and Ramanathan, which is likely to happen tomorrow.  

Ravindran has also strongly questioned the appointment of lawyers by SSL to fight SHCIL’s case before the Company Law Board (CLB) alleging fraud and deception by the management of SSL for the clandestine reduction of its shareholding to a mere 24%. He points out that lawyers were appointed without seeking any approval by the board of directors.

 

SHCIL making quiet moves for majority control

Meanwhile SHCIL is also making quiet moves to buy out shares from the unknown individuals Prabha Subramaniam of Hyderabad, Gopika Vaishnav and Vivek Vaishnav of Ahmedabad and others. The idea is to use the CLB’s order under Sec. 250 (2) of the Companies Act to restore its shareholding in SSL and gain majority control over the company.

We learn that Subramaniam has already offered the shares. But strangely enough, there has been no investigation into who these people are and why they were they favoured with such a significant shareholding in this unlisted company. Merely buying out their shares without an investigation reeks of a cover up.

 


-- Sucheta Dalal