On Coforge, Subramanian says the chairman’s position became untenable after a board evaluation gave him the lowest rating, while key shareholder Advent voted against his reappointment. He says the issue brought the chairman’s integrity into question and ultimately led to his resignation.
This is an edited transcript of the interview.
Q: HDFC Bank is in focus after a Bahrain court ruled in favour of the bank, rejecting claims filed by seven investors over Credit Suisse Additional Tier 1 (AT-1) bonds bought through HDFC Bank. How do you look at this development?
A: This is a big positive for HDFC Bank because the overhang of this case, especially the misselling and the accusation that the bank has missold, is gone.
In fact, HDFC Bank has fined its key executives on this ground, but when investors buy these sorts of bonds, that too third-party bonds, HDFC Bank is acting as a direct sales agent or an investment advisor, etc. It is up to the investors also. And I presume many of these investors are high net worth individuals (HNIs) who have their own thinking.
And there were accusations of misselling, of misclassification, misrepresentation. I don’t think those held merit, and I think the court has rightly pointed out that the onus is also on the investors to do their due diligence.
Q: What next steps post this? Or this is done now?
A: For the interim, I don’t think there is anything to be done. This is done as far as the accusations of misselling in the Middle East goes.
And because this is the only case that is relevant in the Middle East and because it has to do with the AT-1 bonds, and this happened way back, I mean many, many years back, the investors have — because probably they lost money — but at the end of the day, that is outside the control of HDFC Bank also.
Q: The other one which has been in the news, of course, has been Coforge. How do you look at that one?
A: There are two elements to it. One, obviously, the company has put out another statement yesterday, September 10 and this morning, and that statement said that it has to do only with the board evaluation exercise.
And there were misrepresentations made by the chairman because the chairman got the lowest rating in that board evaluation exercise, and board evaluation is a requirement by SEBI and by Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements (LODR).
And the exercise pointed out that the chairman got the lowest rating and that was not presented to the board, to the Nomination and Remuneration Committee (NRC) and the board. And so, to that extent, the chairman’s integrity came into the fore, and I think the other board members did not like it.
And Advent, as a key investor, has chosen to vote against his reappointment when the vote came up on August 24, 2026, that is just less than a month ago. Advent, as a shareholder, voted against his reappointment.
And that is a point that obviously the company is not putting out, but that is seen from the voting results.
Watch the full conversation here
So, to that extent, OP Bhatt, whose term is to end only in May 2027, chose to resign because, obviously, it’s sort of not a good thing that other members of the board are not looking at him in good light. The key shareholder is also sort of voting him out.
So, from that perspective, his position on the board became untenable.
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