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Grapevine: 4 banks, others to Yes Bank rescue; Walmart India insider to be CEO

By Ankit Agarwal

  • 13 Mar 2020
Grapevine: 4 banks, others to Yes Bank rescue; Walmart India insider to be CEO
Credit: VCCircle

State Bank of India or SBI will be joined by private-sector lenders ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank for the rescue of Yes Bank, three people aware of the development told The Economic Times.

Radhakishan Damani, founder of retailer Avenue Supermarts, ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and the Azim Premji Trust will also chip in, they added asking not to be named. 

All of the above will invest Rs 12,000 crore ($1.6 billion at current exchange rate), the persons said. 

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Yes Bank’s administrator Prashant Kumar has been appointed as the new chief executive.

These investors will together hold more than 49% stake in Yes Bank, with SBI’s holding at 45%, according to the proposal sent to the central bank, they said.

“All the investors are local and their collective share is slightly more than what SBI is investing. The investment will be done in phases and foreign funds may join in later,” one of the persons said.

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“All the four private-sector banks will hold not more than 5% each. There are other investors also which will invest and together these investors will hold slightly more equity than SBI,” said another person familiar with the matter.

In another development, Walmart India is elevating Sameer Aggarwal to head its India operations in April, replacing Krish Iyer, currently president and chief executive of Walmart India, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told The Economic Times.

Iyer, who has been serving for six years, will move to an advisory role within the company. His contract is set to expire only next year, two people said asking not to be named.

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This is the third promotion for Aggarwal since he was hired in April 2018 as chief strategy and administrative officer at Walmart India. He was an executive at KFC in Thailand and served as the head of strategy at Sainsbury’s in London and China.

Aggarwal was promoted to deputy chief executive of Walmart India, which operates 28 Best Price cash-and-carry stores, in January.

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