NSE picks IDFC's Limaye as new chief

No formal announcement on selection yet pending formalities at Limaye's end; Sebi nod awaited

The board of directors of the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) on Friday selected IDFC chief Vikram Limaye as the chief executive officer and managing director of the bourse.

There has yet been no formal announcement on the selection pending formalities that need to be completed at Limaye's end. Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is yet to give a nod to the appointment.

The appointment of the exchange's chief is important, coming as it does ahead of its initial public offering and after the abrupt departure of its MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna, who resigned, citing personal reasons. NSE had filed its draft prospectus with Sebi last month and intends to offer around 111 million shares, representing 22.5 per cent of the post-offer paid up equity capital of the company.

Group president J Ravichandran is acting as the interim CEO for the bourse.

Limaye is a chartered accountant and has done an MBA in Finance and Multinational Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, US. He has spent more than a decade at infrastructure finance firm IDFC. Prior to his current stint, he worked on the Wall Street with Credit Suisse First Boston for eight years in diverse roles spanning investment banking, capital markets, structured finance and credit portfolio management.

On January 30, Limaye was named a member of a four-member panel by the Supreme Court to run the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the apex body for the richest cricket body in the world.

Limaye has contributed to various committees of government and industry associations on a range of topics surrounding infrastructure, economic policy, markets and trade. He has been a speaker at various domestic and international conferences and been part of international government delegations for infrastructure and foreign direct investments into India.

NSE's board of directors had kickstarted the process for selection of the new MD & CEO in early December and had set up a selection committee for the same as per Sebi guidelines.

The selection committee comprised two public interest directors at NSE, Dinesh Kanabar and Mohandas Pai, and two independent experts, Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group, and Usha Thorat, former deputy governor at the Reserve Bank of India. Executive search firm Egon Zehnder has been hired to screen and shortlist the applicants, which will then be forwarded to the selection committee.

NSE had issued an advertisement on December 20 for applications. The bourse reportedly got about 90 applications for the tob job, most of them non-financial market professionals.

Besides Limaye, IAS officer Sanjeev Kaushik, NSE's senior executive Ravi Varanasi, IFCI deputy managing director Sanjeev Kaushik and Indostar Capital CEO Vimal Bhandari were some of the other candidates reportedly in the race for the top job at NSE.