Back to square one at UTI AMC

Edward Bernard,vice-chairman of the world’s sixth-largest investment firm T Rowe Price (it manages $510 billion in assets) came to meet finance ministry officials to cap the four-month row on who should head UTI AMC,and left even more confused.

As reported first by FE April,the UTI AMC board had appointed an HR sub-committee to select a new head and this,in turn,had appointed global HR firm Egon Zehnder to prepare the first short-list. While finance ministry wanted Jitesh Khosla to be appointed even though he was not on the Egon list,the HR committee met him and rejected him. While T Rowe Price which owns 26% of UTI AMC then asked other shareholders—SBI,PNB,LIC,BoB—to go ahead and select from the HR Committee’s list of two,these government-owned institutions refused to go ahead,suggesting T Rowe Price would do well to discuss the matter with the ministry.

Bernard met R Gopalan,secretary,department of economic affairs and Thomas Mathew,joint secretary,capital markets to discuss matters,but was told that he needed to go back to his shareholders. Bernard also detailed the entire process and how UTI AMC’s board had approved it every step of the way. The merry go round on UTI AMC’s next head carries on.