“I had sanctioned a hefty loan to a large business group. A week later the owner of that group called me up saying that he had got a call from an influential politician’s office to pay up a certain amount, which would then be adjusted against his dues to the bank… under the NPA head, of course. I called up the politician and made it clear that my bank would support no such deal. A few days later I got a call from a senior ministry official asking me if I would interested in taking charge of another PSU bank. I knew this time I had over reached myself, and my days in the current job were numbered. So I agreed to the offer. But there was no word from the finance ministry after that. A few weeks later, I called that person and asked if there was some progress on the earlier conversation. I was told that post could be mine if I was willing to shell out money.
“Do you know what the going rate for a PSU bank chairman’s post is? Take a wild guess,” he said.
“Rs 10 crore,” I replied.
“It can go up to as much as Rs 40 crore, depending on the importance of the bank. I told him that I don’t have even Rs 4 crore on me, leave alone Rs 40 crore. I never heard from him again,” R said.-from FirstBiz
Category: Anecdotes
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Bhave Vs Subrata Roy
One afternoon in June 2010, following normal practice, Roy was ushered into a meeting room adjacent to the Sebi chairman’s room on the seventh floor of Sebi Bhawan, the headquarters. According to Sebi insiders, their conversation went something like this:
Roy: The Reserve Bank has prejudiced Sebi officers. They are taking a negative view on Sahara’s (initial public offering) application without justification.
Bhave: What’s the issue? They are yet to get information they had asked for. Where’s the bias? Submit the information. We can have another meeting on this…
Roy: We have taken legal opinion and we are not required to send the information to Sebi.Bhave: Sebi is not concerned about the legal opinion. Sebi has asked for the information and it needs to be submitted.
Roy: They are voluminous… It’s summer and many of my people have gone on leave. It’s difficult to collate all information.
Bhave: Let the employees come back from their summer holiday. We will wait.
Roy: If you can clear the application meanwhile…
Bhave: No, no… That can’t happen. We need to scrutinise…
Roy (suddenly standing up): Bus, itna hi? (That’s all?)
(He had possibly expected the Sebi chief to hint at a way out after Sahara had exerted much pressure on the regulator, but Bhave seemed unperturbed.)
-from BusinessToday
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Two stories from Rahul Bhasin
Rahul Bhasin is a private equity investor who is trying to invest in Indian factories despite the government of India emphatically telling him that this is not a smart thing to do. He had two stories to tell me. The first is as follows: Bhasin received a business investment proposal from a dynamic entrepreneur in Tiruppur. The proposal involved dismantling the existing factory in Tiruppur and moving it to Oman. The entrepreneur claimed that despite Oman’s high labour costs, the sheer ease of doing business there would make this proposed shift economically viable and profitable. Needless to say, Bhasin, being an Indian patriot of the subdued variety and not a hyper-minister, was not sure whether he should weep or laugh. The second story is about a run-of-the-mill factory. The factory manager answered all questions competently. When it came to questions relating to the use of the back-up diesel generator, the manager started to fumble. Finally, he said rather sheepishly: “To tell you the truth, Mr Bhasin, we have never had a need to use the back-up generator in years. Our power supply has been quite reliable.” No prizes for guessing — this factory is in Gujarat-from IE
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Jamie Dimon on getting fired
I went home and I sat my three little girls down. They were probably at the time 10, 8 and 6. I said girls, I’ve got to tell you something. I resigned, but that really means I no longer have my job. I was fired but I want you to know I’m completely okay. And my little one said ,”Daddy, do we have to go sleep on the streets?” I said, “No, sweetie, we’re here, we’re fine, we’re fortunate everything’s going to be exactly the same except Daddy’s going to be home a bit more.” And the middle daughter, who was always obsessed with college, said, “Can I still go to college?” I said, “Of course you can still go to college.” And the oldest one said, “So if everything’s okay, can I have your cell phone? You won’t be needing it-from Bloomberg
Telugu filmdom is now full of tales about how Dasari Narayana Rao, who had fallen on hard times financially, suddenly seemed flush with money after he became MoS for coal and mines in 2004. “Dasari used to stay in Prashasan Nagar in a police officer’s house on rent,” says another filmmaker, refusing to be named. “He could not pay his dues for 10 months. This was in 2002. He was in such debt that every hour he’d receive calls from financiers and lenders asking for amounts ranging from a lakh to a crore.
Dasari owned a school in Chennai opposite Prasad Studios and was to sell it to Vazhapadi Ramamurthy, a politician, in 2001 in order to recover some money. But after Dasari took an advance, Vazhapadi passed away and the sale was called off,” he says. About a month after he became Union minister in 2004, Dasari called financiers to his place and settled dues worth Rs 3.75 crore. “They were all stunned because he was literally subsisting on hand loans at the time. But they were glad to get their money back,” says a film distributor.
Overnight, Dasari seemed to have come into big money and bought distribution rights for big films such as Jai Chiranjeeva (starring Chiranjeevi), Sainikudu (Mahesh Babu), Super (Nagarjuna), Balu ABCDEFG (Pawan Kalyan), Desam Muduru (Allu Arjun). “He spent Rs 6 crore to buy the distribution rights of Jai Chiranjeeva for Nizam and Vizag areas and the movie tanked. But his company was strangely making profits,” says a director. “This way, Dasari bought rights for 40 big films soon after becoming minister. Where were the funds coming from unless it suddenly rained money in his native hometown Palakolu (West Godavari) district,” says the director.-from Outlook