2 Tata Men On Vsnl Board

The Tata group has appointed two of its group executives -- Ishaat Hussain, director (finance), Tata Sons, and Kishore A Chaukar, managing director, Tata Industries -- as additional directors on the board of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL).

The Tata group had bought a 45 per cent holding (including 20 per cent open offer) in VSNL for Rs 2,500 crore.

VSNL has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that Hussain and Chaukar will be on its board with effect from July 1, 2002. This takes the current number of VSNL board members to nine against the entitled board strength of 12.

The Tatas can induct three more members as per the offer document. According to the document, if Tatas acquire more than 30 per cent of the equity shares in VSNL, then it will be entitled to nominate all four retiring and non-independent directors, and four retiring and independent directors.

In addition, Panatone Finvest, the special purpose vehicle of Tata group set up to buy the government's 25 per cent holding in VSNL, has the right to designate one of the directors nominated by it as the managing director of VSNL so long as it owns 25 per cent of the equity shares.

Panatone is now a subsidiary of Tata Sons with a 59.95 per cent stake, Tata Power (40 per cent), Tata Steel and Tata Industries each with less than 0.022 per cent equity.

The other board members on VSNL are Ratan N Tata as its non-executive chairman, S K Gupta, managing director, N Srinath, director (operations), two independent directors -- Subodh Bhargava (chairman of Eicher group of companies) and Suresh Krishna (chairman of Sundaram Fastners) -- and two government nominees -- Yashwant Bhave and Rakesh Kumar.

Tata, Gupta and Srinath were appointed on the board of directors of VSNL on February 13, 2002, and were the representatives of Panatone.