Sobti To Quit Abn Amro, Join Dcb As Head Honcho

ABN Amro Bank's executive vice-president & chief executive, Romesh Sobti, is joining Development Credit Bank (DCB) as its managing director and chief executive officer.

ABN-Amro Securities Pvt Ltd managing director Vishnu Deuskar will be taking over as the country representative of ABN Amro Bank.

DCB's present managing director and chief executive, Siddarth Sitholey, will attain super annuation by December 2001. But sources said that Sitholey is looking at joining IndusInd Bank as an executive director. However, IndusInd officials refused to comment on the matter.

Explaining his move to join a relatively small bank like DCB, Sobti, said "The issue is not of a small or a big bank. I have worked for 9 years in a public sector bank and 18 years in a foreign bank. I was looking at challenge and my role in DCB would be of an entrepreneurial role."

Sobti said he will be joining in the next six to eight weeks. On his mandate in DCB he said, "My mandate in DCB is to create a universal bank with a full suite of products for consumer and corporate banking."

However, according to industry observers said Sobti may have moved because of the organisational changes at ABN Amro. The bank was broken up into three strategic business unit (SBUs) globally.

According to the recast, in the third quarter of last year, three SBUs were created -- wholesale clients, consumer & commercial clients (C& CC), and private clients & asset management.

These plans have already been effected from January 1, 2001. According to the new plans in India, the wholesale and private clients & asset management SBUs reported directly to Amsterdam and Singapore, respectively. Only the C & CC business unit reports to Sobti. These changes had cut down Sobti's power drastically.

Deuskar will continue to be directly responsible for the global finance markets business unit (BU) and will also co-ordinate the activities of other business units operating in the country as chairman of both wholesale and C&CC.

The C&CC managing committee will also include head of consumer bank Nitin Chopra and chief operating officer Meera Sanyal.