Citibank's Cairo unit head may join Centurion

Centurion Bank is likely to appoint senior executives to head its different business units even as the first stage of the bank's recapitalisation process by BankMuscat and Rana Talwar's Sabre Capital has been completed.

In the first phase, the bank is likely to appoint Ajay Makhija as the head of retail banking. Makhija currently is the head of consumer banking in Citibank in Cairo.

He was earlier the head of branch banking in India. He has, however, not put in his papers at Citibank.

Earlier, Shailendra Bhandari, who was the managing director of Prudential-ICICI Asset Management Co took over as the managing director of the bank today.

The bank is likely to have four functional heads under Bhandari _ treasury, retail, operations and corporate.

The senior level would be a mix of new and existing people from the bank.

Rana Talwar, who is now on the board of the bank, will be the new chairman of the bank.

The tenure of V Janakiraman, who was appointed by the board at the behest of the Reserve Bank of India, came to an end on January 31.

He was appointed as the chairman and managing director of the bank on January 4, 2002.

According to Bhandari, retail will be the focus area of the bank. Retail constitutes 75 per cent of total deposits and 73 per cent of assets. This ratio could increase to around 80 per cent.

The bank has received its first phase of funds of Rs 154 crore from the new investors. The shares to these investors will be issued on February 4 when the existing paid up capital of the bank will be reduced from Rs 152.47 crore to Rs 15.24 crore.

The face value of the bank's share will be bought down to Re 1 from Rs 10 _ by cancelling Rs 9 from the existing face value. Of the Rs 154 crore which was bought in by the investors""BankMuscat invested Rs 75 crore, Sabre Rs 4 crore, Singapore's Keppel Rs 22 crore and the Manila-based Asian Development Bank Rs 3 crore. Other investor groups bought in by Sabre will bring in Rs 50 crore.