Shareholders reject Birla nominees on MP Birla companies

The Birla camp failed to nominate directors on the board of three MP Birla group companies — Vindhya Telelinks, Universal Cables and Birla Cable — as majority of the shareholders voted against the resolutions in the annual general meetings held on Thursday.

According to the voting results available in the stock exchanges, 72 per cent of the valid votes were cast against the Birla camp resolution to appoint chartered accountant Dhanpat Ram Pal Agarwal as a director of Vindhya Telelinks. The resolution to appoint another Birla camp nominee, Shyamal Kanti Chakrabarti, was also rejected by the shareholders. The Birla camp managed to get only 28 per cent of the votes in favour of their resolutions.

On Birla Cable board, Chairman Harsh Vardhan Lodha was reappointed with 83 per cent of the votes cast in favour while majority of the shareholders rejected the Birla camp nominee — Satish Pradhan to their board. The shareholders of Universal Cables also rejected the appointment of both Agarwal and Chakrabarti on their board.

The AGM of MP Birla group’s flagship, Birla Corporation will be held on September 29. The Birlas are seeking to appoint one of their nominees on the board of Birla Corporation.

Punjab Produce and Trading, an investment company, filed nominations seeking appointment of two directors on the boards of all three cable companies. In two of them, Vindhya Telelinks and Universal Cables, they tried to remove justice (retired) Dilip Ganesh Karnik, who was seeking reappointment as director In Birla Cable, the Birla camp had sought to remove Harsh Vardhan Lodha, currently the chairman of the MP Birla group.

In a statement, the MP Birla group said all these resolutions, which were aimed at interfering with the management of the professionally run companies, were defeated comprehensively. The boards of the MP Birla companies had deliberated over these nominations and strongly recommended shareholders to vote against them in view of potential conflict of interest if these persons were elected.

“It’s a landmark victory over years of mischievous acts, and one of the most memorable ones in 17 years of the proxy war being waged against the wishes of the late Priyamvada Birla,” said Debanjan Mandal, partner, Fox & Mandal.

“It gives us immense confidence to take on much more.” Two of the three members of the APL Committee, or the court appointed panel of administrators overseeing the estate of Priyamvada Birla, have in the past couple years made repeated attempts to grab control of investment companies, trusts and societies of the MP Birla Group with the ultimate aim of influencing the operations of the listed companies. In 2020, they unlawfully altered the boards of several investment companies, one of them being Punjab Produce, the statement said.

The AGM of MP Birla group’s flagship, Birla Corporation will be held on September 29. The Birlas are seeking to appoint one of their nominees on the board of Birla Corporation