Amitabh Bachchan resigns from Amar Singh-led firm

New Delhi: Amitabh Bachchan has resigned from the board of Energy Development Company Ltd, a firm run and promoted by politician Amar Singh in which he has been a shareholder.

In a regulatory filing, Energy Development Company Ltd (EDCL) said Bachchan has resigned as its independent director and its board in a meeting held today accepted the resignation. EDCL also said that its Executive Chairman Amar Singh has expressed his inability to continue in the executive position and would become its non-executive Chairman from next month. Singh`s current term as Executive Chairman will end on July 31 and he has expressed his desire to discontinue his executive role due to "time constraints", the company said. Bachchan and Singh, who were close for a long time, parted ways over a year ago. In another board-level change at his company EDCL, industrialist Harshvadhan Neotia has also resigned from the board as independent director and the same has been accepted. The UP Electricity Regulator Commission`s former Chairman Vijoy Kumar has been appointed as an independent additional director. Bachchan has previously held 10 lakh shares in the company, whose shares today closed at Rs 34.15. All the promoters, who include Singh and his wife Pankaja Kumari Singh, together hold 56.36 per cent stake in EDCL, which is currently valued at about Rs 100 crore. In the past, Bachchan has been a shareholder – initially as promoter shareholder and later as public shareholder – in the company with 10 lakh shares. As per the shareholding pattern disclosed by the company, Bachchan`s 10 lakh shares was equivalent to a 3.64 per cent stake at the end of June, 2009. He was named as a promoter shareholder by the company till December 2005, but his status changed to non-promoter, or public shareholder, in 2006. In the past, the company has named entities like SBI, IFCI, IDBI, UTI and Sahara India International Corporation Ltd as its shareholders. Separately, the company also reported a net profit of Rs 7.6 crore for the year ended March 31, 2011, down from Rs 11.9 crore in the previous year. The revenue rose to Rs 52 crore from Rs 35.7 crore. PTI