Spandana Sphoorty appoints Shalabh Saxena as new MD and CEO

The country’s second-largest microfinance institution, Spandana Sphoorty, on Monday announced the appointment of Shalabh Saxena as its new Managing Director and CEO, and Ashish Damani as the President and Chief Financial Officer.

While Saxena is currently serving as the MD and CEO of Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd (BFIL), Damani has nearly two decades of experience at BFIL and is currently serving as its Chief Financial Officer, Spandana said in a statement.

“Both Saxena and Damani will join Spandana soon,” it further said. In a stock exchange filing, Spandana said the board has approved the appointment of Saxena for five years from the date of joining.

The Board has also appointed Abanti Mitra, an independent director with Spandana since 2011, as non-executive Chairperson of the Board with immediate effect. “Outgoing Chairman, Deepak Vaidya, will continue to serve on the Board as an independent director,” it said.

Spandana has been in the spotlight after its founder and erstwhile Managing Director Padmaja Reddy stepped down over concerns over a plan to sell the company to Axis Bank. It had on November 2 announced a change in its leadership structure, following the resignation of Reddy and had confirmed the hiring of an eminent industry veteran as its new MD and CEO.

In its statement on Monday, Spandana said the Management Committee of the board is fully engaged in supporting day-to-day operations. The company has also hired independent third-party firms Alvarez & Marsal, PwC and CAM to provide support and conduct special review exercises during the leadership transition, and they are already fully engaged.

Transition

The Management Committee is also in the process of addressing gaps in the transition of services after Reddy stepped down.

“Shortly prior to her resignation, Reddy had transferred the company’s IT systems to a new IT vendor and outsourced its management to that vendor,” Spandana said, adding that there has been no meaningful impact on the day-to-day business operations of the company from this.

It is engaging with the new vendor appropriately and has also made good progress on creating a parallel IT environment.

Additionally, some potential concerns have been brought to the board’s notice regarding certain gold loan branches of Spandana’s subsidiary, Criss Financial Limited. It is currently in the process of confirming the status of the same, the company said.

The matter relates to its branches with a combined portfolio of less than one per cent of Spandana’s consolidated AUM, and therefore would not have a material financial impact on the company.

Business update

Spandana’s business demonstrated healthy performance in the quarter that ended September 30, 2021 (unaudited basis), with standalone collection efficiency for the entire quarter of 105 per cent and 113 per cent for September, including pre-payments, the company said.

The standalone disbursal volumes are also healthy at over ₹1,150 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, it further said.

It has resumed the audit of the financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, following a brief transition-related hiatus and expects to announce results in the next few weeks.

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