- HDFC Bank has shortlisted three names and sent to RBI for approval for the role of MD & CEO to replace Aditya Puri.
HDFC Bank “completed the names of three applicants for the Bank’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)” These names will be sent to Reserve Bank of India for approval, and the bank said in a statement to the stock exchanges on Saturday, after obtaining due disclosures.
The bank has three contenders to succeed at Puri, according to an earlier ET article. Those include both the bank’s executive directors Sashidhar (Sashi) Jagdishan and Kaizad Bharucha and Citi Commercial Bank’s regional CEO Sunil Garg.
After its inception in 1994, Puri, 69, has been credited with creating the bank from scratch and transforming it into a financial giant with a balance sheet size of almost Rs 14 lakh. The term is expected to expire in October 2020.
Last year the bank had created a six-member search committee to find a replacement and hired Egon Zehnder to assist with the hunt. Puri, who has more than 40 years of banking experience, is a selection committee consultant.
There’s been talk as to whether his replacement will be from within or outside the bank. In a February interview with ET, Puri said the board acknowledged the insiders’ contributions to the bank’s evolution.
Private sector lender, HDFC Bank announced on Saturday a 17.7% year-on-year (YoY) rise in its net profit to approximately 6,927.6 crores for the quarter ended March led by an improvement in net interest income (NII) and other revenue.
Nevertheless, the income from the bank was lower than the approximately 7,253.8 crores forecast by Bloomberg’s eight analysts. Profit was hit during the March quarter due to the doubling of provisions to some 3,784.4 crores.
The bank said the quarter provisions contained COVID-19-related credit reserves in the form of contingent provisions of approximately 1,550 crores.
The asset quality of HDFC Bank improved in the quarter of March, with the gross bad loan ratio or the percentage of bad loans to total advances decreasing from 10 bps to 1.26%. The net NPA ratio in Q4 FY20 dropped from 3 bps to 0.36 percent.
The bank said in a statement that it would extend a three-month moratorium on payment of all installments and/or interest due to all qualifying borrowers categorized as regular between 1 March and 31 May, while overdue, as of 29 February.
In January-March, bank advances rose by 21.3 percent year-on-year to some 9.93 trillion. Domestic retail loans grew 14.6 percent and wholesale loans grew 29.3 percent, it said, adding that the retail-to-wholesale domestic loan ratio was 51:49.
