PUNE, NOV 8: United Western Bank has sought the intervention of the Reserve Bank of India and the SEBI to prevent destabilisation of the existing management by a group of shareholders led by Sicom and Emtex through a takeover attempt.``We are a profit-making bank paying dividend uninterrupted for the last 62 years," said ST Gadre, MD of United Western Bank. The uniqueness of the bank, based in Satara, has been that it has been run by professionals who do not have any holdings in the bank and have made it a successful bank, he said. The Sicom-led group is aiming for induction for their four nominees in the eight member board during the forthcoming extra-ordinary general meeting of the bank on November 24.The United Western board's contention is that Emtex, Sicom and its associates thwarted their attempt to reward shareholders with a rights-cum-bonus issue. The petition was filed with the Company Law board, which gave an injunction against the issue. The hearing on the injunction given against the rights-cum-bonus issue of Bank will come up for hearing on November 13, 2000.``It is a stabbing in the back by Sicom,'' Gadre said. ``We have had a strategic association with them so far and we hope wise counsel will prevail at Sicom," Gadre said. Sicom has joined hands with people against whom the bank has served winding up notice, Gadre said referring to the defaults by the Emtex Group. "They are part of the bank's NPAs," he said. Emtex, Sicom and associates together have picked up 25 per cent stake in the market and are seeking control over the management.``The bank believes that the fund-starved Sicom and its associates have prevented the rights-cum-bonus issue fearing dilution of its stock,'' he said. Nearly 75 per cent of the bank shares are owned by 50,000 shareholders out of which 40,000 are in Maharashtra.The extra-ordinary general meeting scheduled for November 24 will decide in which way the scales tilt in the fight for management control. P N Joshi, who was chairman of the bank and retired on October 31 was to be made non-executive chairman of the bank. This has not been cleared.The outcome of the battle will largely depend on the verdict from the individual shareholders who hold around 70 per cent equity share of the bank.Domestic financial institutions (barring Sicom which holds around 9.4 per cent equity) are opposing the move of the minority shareholders. Institutions like IDBI, LIC and Oriental Insurance Corporation hold around 5 per cent of the equity of the bank.According to bank officials, apart from Sicom Makharia and his group companies holds around 13 per cent of the equity in the bank. Both of them are jointly bidding for the management control of the bank by nominating four persons on the bank board. While Makharia proposed to include industrialist Dilip Piramal and former state bureaucrat Sharad Upasani, Sicom nominated its chairman A K D Jadhav and senior general manager D M Chawathe as their persons on the board.The bank's Rs 10 paid-up shares have been firming up over the recent weeks following the developments and the scrip rose from Rs 35 to Rs 50.90 per share in a couple of weeks.
