Religare Enterprises to classify promoters as public shareholders

Financial services conglomerate Religare Enterprises today said the promoter and promoter groups of the company will be reclassified into public shareholding category.

"The Board of Directors has approved the proposal for re-classification of existing promoters and promoter group into the public shareholder category as requested by them, subject to approval of shareholders of the company," Religare Enterprises said in a statement.

Brothers Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh are the promoters of the company. While RHC Finance and RHC Holding are the promoter groups.

The brothers and promotor groups have brought down their shareholding in the company substantially over a period of time on a number of factors as also Malvinder and Shivinder quit from the boards of Fortis and Religare Enterprises in February this year.

As on June 30, 2018, Malvinder and Shivinder held 0.56 per cent and 0.51 per cent respectively in the company. While, RHC Finance and RHC Holding had 0.99 per cent and 0.95 per cent respectively.

The combined shareholding of the promoters and promoter groups now stands at 3.01 per cent, substantially down from 50.93 per cent as on June 30, 2016 and even before that time. Other family members of the company had also significant stake in REL which now stands as nil.

The billionaire Singh brothers faced an international arbitration with Japan's Daiichi Sankyo to make a payment of Rs 3,500 crore as the latter alleged that the former promoters of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd had concealed information about proceedings against them by the American food and drug department.

Singh brothers had sold their shares in Ranbaxy to Daiichi in 2008 for Rs 9,576.1 crore. Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd later acquired the company from Daiichi.

The Delhi High Court in January this year upheld the international arbitral award in favour of Japanese pharma major.

Religare also announced today that it has appointed Milind Patel as the Group Chief Executive Officer of the company, replacing the interim CEO Ashok Mehta.

Mehta will stay on as non-executive non-independent director, subject to RBI approval, it said.

Patel comes with over 26 years of financial experience and has worked in select multinational and domestic financial institutions on diverse mandates.

A graduate in Commerce from Sydenham College, Mumbai and Cost and Works Accountancy from the ICWAI, Patel also holds an MBA degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Religare Enterprises has host of subsidiaries engaged in business of SME loans, housing finance, health insurance and retail broking among others.

Shares of Religare Enterprises traded 0.76 per cent down at Rs 45.65 on BSE.