Rama Krishna Sangem
Standard Chartered Plc’s chief executive officer for India and Southeast Asia, Zarin Daruwala, will retire April 1 after serving more than eight years in the role.
Daruwala, who is one of the two female heads of large foreign banks in the country, joined the lender in 2016 as CEO for India. The bank said it would provide an update on her successor in due course. Bloomberg News first reported on Daruwala’s planned departure earlier Wednesday.
The UK lender, which is undergoing a broader management reshuffle and restructuring of some of its divisions, has lost several key personnel in India, where it is intensifying efforts to capture a larger share of the country’s growing wealth.
he bank is revamping its corporate and investment banking arm, removing layers of regional management to speed up decision-making and increase accountability for business performance, according to a Bloomberg report. In April, the bank appointed Singapore-based Sunil Kaushal as co-head of corporate and investment banking, with responsibility for ASEAN and Asia markets.
$ 5 billion Bad loans
About $5 billion of advances Standard Chartered made to Indian borrowers have been internally classified as at risk of defaulting, in addition to the $1 billion of onshore loans that have already become non-performing in India, the people said.
India, Standard Chartered’s biggest profit contributor as recently as 2010, has become a major headache for chief executive officer Bill Winters, who took over from Peter Sands in June. As emerging-market loan losses accelerate, he’s raising money, cutting about 15,000 jobs globally and exiting or restructuring about $100 billion of assets. Standard Chartered has reduced exposure to India by about a fifth.
There are good opportunities there, but equally one needs to be very, very selective,” Winters, 54, said on a 3 November conference call after the bank announced a surprise third- quarter loss.
SCB in India since 1858
Standard Chartered’s woes in India are partly the result of an expansion there that failed to fully factor in the risk of lending to companies like Essar, according to current and former employees who spoke on condition of anonymity. A major reason for Essar’s failure to pay up its loan is the bad management of the company. Standard Chartered bank could not guess such cases in India.
Essar Global experienced delays in its investment projects that were “beyond the control of the company” and expects they will begin to show results it can use to repay debt within six to nine months, the company said in an e-mailed response to questions.
Standard Chartered has been in India since 1858, but it was after the 2008 global financial crisis that the country became a main growth engine. The London-based lender was less affected by the turmoil than competitors like Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley. In November 2008, it bolstered financial buffers by raising $2.7 billion from investors including Singapore’s state investment company, Temasek Holdings Pte.
