Shareholders of Tata Steel have voted to remove Nusli Wadia from the board of the company after a marathon six-hour long extraordinary general meeting (EGM) that was held in Mumbai on December 21, 2016.
The meeting, which started at 3 pm, stretched till after 9 pm and the results of the EGM resolutions were tallied, scrutinised and made public only on Thursday morning.
The EGM considered removal of Nusli Wadia as an independent director from the board of Tata Steel.
Here's what happened at the EGM:
OP Bhatt, former managing director of State Bank of India (SBI) chaired the meeting. He is also one of the independent directors on the board of Tata Steel.
All directors except Nusli Wadia were present at the meeting. Wadia had sent a three-page letter to shareholders earlier in the day outlining his views. He had pointed out that buying Corus was a mistake and Tata Steel has suffered losses worth Rs 35,000 crore on the acquisition so far.
There were two ordinary resolutions at the EGM. One, to remove Cyrus Mistry as a director and the second was to remove Nusli Wadia as a director from Tata Steel's board.
Tata Steel said, "The Chairman further informed that the Notice convening the EGM and the representations made by the two directors in terms of section 169(4) of the Companies Act, 2013 were sent to shareholders. With the permission of the shareholders, the Notice convening the meeting and the written representations of Cyrus Mistry and Nusli Wadia were taken as read."
The Chairman, OP Bhatt, then informed the shareholders that since Mistry has already resigned, only resolution number 2 of Wadia's removal will be taken up at the EGM.
Bhatt further announced that in view of the resignation of Cyrus Mistry as Director of the Company effective December 19, 2016, the resolution for his removal has been infructuous.
Hence, no voting for this item of the agenda took place at the meeting and the result of remote e-voting for the same has not been provided in the report.
Cyrus Mistry resigned from Tata Steel's board on December 19, 2016. The company said that the Board had taken note of the resignation and necessary regulatory filings were made.
This was followed by the second resolution pertaining to removal of Nusli Wadia from Tata Steel's board.
Bhatt informed shareholders that Wadia was not present at the meeting but had sent a communication to the Company Secretary and had requested that the same be read out to the shareholders.
Bhatt requested Company Secretary to read out the letter and he did. The letter was dated December 20, 2016.
Tata Steel said that voting was carried out and out 62.54 crore votes polled, 90.80% voted in favour of the resolution, i.e. to remove Wadia from Tata Steel's board.
It said, "Motion Carried in favour of the resolution with overwhelming majority way beyond a special resolution hurdle of 75%, even though this motion was an ordinary resolution requiring simple majority."
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Shares of Tata Steel reacted on Thursday morning and were trading at Rs 402.80 per share on BSE Sensex, down 0.52%.
10:09 AM IST