PN Vasudevan, Managing Director and CEO, Equitas Small Finance Bank, has decided to step down from his role in order to focus on the public charitable trust that he and his wife had set up.

Speaking to BusinessLine, Vasudevan said the announcement should be looked at as succession planning, and he would eventually consider selling his shares in Equitas to create a corpus for the trust.

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“There is no hurry or time pressure to find a successor. The board will take its time to ensure that the candidate is the right fit,” he said, adding that it could take at least nine months to one year for the process to complete.

“There’s so much scope to do good. We need a lot of corpus for the trust as it is difficult to do so on donor funds on a continuous and sustained basis,” he further said, adding that he has shares in the holding company, which he may look to convert to cash and use it for the trust.

This would however, be done only at a later date and not immediately, he stressed. Vasudevan holds about 2 per cent stake in Equitas Holdings.

He also said his decision to step down was not sudden.

In a stock exchange filing on Thursday, Equitas SFB said, “Vasudevan is the founder of Equitas…He now wants to pursue a distinct set of goals, which he believes, will help him contribute further back to society, more than what he is doing now.”

To form search panel

The bank would be forming a search committee shortly to undertake the process of identifying a successor, it further said.

Vasudevan would continue as MD and CEO till the succession and transition process is completed.

“Post the transition, the board desires that he may be associated with the bank in any other capacity, as permissible under applicable statute and regulations,” it further said.

In his letter submitted on Thursday, Vasudevan has said he and his wife had founded Varshini Illam Trust, run an adoption centre and also have started a project under the trust to provide medical and therapy treatment to babies in rural and semi urban areas.

“We, in our family, have been discussing for some time now, about carrying out multiple interventions through our Trust to do our bit in society. We realise that this would require as large a corpus to be created as possible, so that the Trust would be assured of steady revenues to carry out its activities sustainably and on scale,” he said.

However, his stake in Equitas is too small to create a large enough corpus, he said, adding that he needs to do something to create this.

Vasudevan started Equitas in 2007 as a microfinance institution and it later converted into an SFB in 2016.

He also expressed confidence that his resignation will not impact the merger of Equitas Holdings with Equitas SFB.

“RBI has given its no objection. We are now awaiting SEBI approval following which we will seek approval from the NCLT and shareholders,” he said.

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