Nearly 70 per cent of BSE’s shareholders, who participated in the voting process, approved of the appointment of Sundararaman R as the exchange’s new MD and CEO. But data showed that the 62-year-old Sundararaman, who joined BSE this month after a long stint with the Bank of America (BoA) in India, could not win an overwhelming support from large shareholders. Voting results revealed that 35.88 per cent of public institutions voted against the appointment of Sundararaman and 64.11 per cent shareholders in the category supported him. BSE published the data on January 16.

Overall, the voter participation was ridiculously low. Only 17.69 percent of voters (based on the number of shares outstanding) participated in the process. Data shows that BSE has a total of 13.54 per cent shares outstanding, of which shareholders holding only 2.39 crore shares participated in the process.  Sundararaman won favourable votes from shareholders holding 1.69 crore shares, while he faced opposition from shareholders with 69.73 lakh shares. Rest of them did not participate.

Data showed that 89.72 per cent of institutional shareholders of BSE participated in the voting process. The voter interest in the non institutional category was far lower since only 4 percent of shareholders participated. Before joining BoA in 2012, Sundaraman was the National Stock Exchange’s Chief of Products, and worked with the bourse for nearly 20 years. Brokers told Businessline that the high amount of opposition to Sundaraman’s appointment simply means that he will have to work hard to win shareholders’ confidence. Despite being the only competitor to the NSE in India, BSE’s current market value is 95 percent lower than NSE.

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