Nusli Wadia removed from Tata Steel board

New Delhi: Tata Steel has removed independent director Nusli Wadia from the company's board. 90.8 percent of shareholders present at yesterday's EGM voted in favour of his ouster.

Meanwhile, Wadia has said that false and baseless allegations have been made in explanatory statement by Tata Sons supporting resolution to seek his removal.

In a regulatory filing, the company said out of its total shares of 97.12 crore, 62.54 crore votes were polled, which translate into 64.4 percent.

"Total vote in favour of the resolution was 56.79 crore, i.E. 90.80 percent, and total vote against the motion was 5.75 crore, i.E. 9.20 percent," it said.

"The motion (was) carried in favour of the resolution with overwhelming majority way beyond a special resolution hurdle of 75 percent, even though this motion was an ordinary resolution requiring simple majority," the company added.

The promoter and promoter firms held 30.45 crore shares in the company, of which 29.59 crore voted.

It further said the total number of votes polled by non-promoter shareholders was 32.95 crore, of which 27.20 crore, that is 82.5 percent, was in favour of the resolution.

The total number of votes polled against the proposal was 5.75 crore, accounting for 17.5 percent of non-promoters.

The company claimed that even if the promoter votes were excluded, the voting result showed an overwhelming majority (3/4th) in favour of the resolution.

Institutional investors held a total of 42.64 crore shares out of which 31.99 crore, which is 75 percent, were polled.

As much as 26.39 crore of institutional shares, which is 82.5 percent, voted in favour of Wadia's removal, Tata Steel said. The share of institutional shares which polled against the resolution was 5.60 crore, that is 17.5 percent.

As for retail shareholders, the company said that out of a total of 24.02 crore shares, 96.14 lakh voted, with 81.21 lakh (84.4 percent) in favour and 15 lakh (15.6 percent) against.

"Both institutional and retail voted on a similar pattern with significant majority well beyond the 3/4th majority mark in all categories," the company said.

Wadia had stayed away from yesterday's EGM, saying it was stage-managed.

Last week, he filed a Rs 3,000-crore defamation suit against Ratan Tata, Tata Sons and some of its directors. He flied the case in the Bombay High Court following the move by Tata Sons to remove him from the board of the three companies.

Wadia had denied allegations by Tata Sons that he was acting in concert with ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry. Besides, he has refuted claims that he was "galvanising" independent directors and mobilising opinion, forcing disruptions and issuing statements" which were contrary to the interest of the companies as "totally baseless and completely unsubstantiated".

With Agency Inputs