Gelli's eldest son on board at GTB

The tenth annual general meeting (AGM) of Global Trust Bank (GTB) held yesterday unanimously approved of the resolution to appoint Girish Gelli, the eldest son of GTB founder Ramesh Gelli, as the non-executive director of the bank.

The AGM also approved of the resolutions to increase the authorised share capital of the bank from Rs 350 crore to Rs 650 crore, and utilise the Rs 129.44 crore amount available in the share premium account for making provisions towards bad and doubtful debts.

The shareholders also gave their consent for the appointment of M Bhaskara Rao &Co as the statutory auditors of the bank in the place of the outgoing auditors Price Waterhouse & Co.

While supporting the resolution to appoint Girish Gelli as the dirrector, some of the shareholders appealed to the bank management to take necessary initiatives to induct Ramesh Gelli as well into the board of GTB.

Delivering the chairman's speech at the AGM, Ravi Appasami, the director of GTB, said that the last financial year was challenging and stressful for the bank due to "convergence of pressures, not only on the asset quality, but also on the image of the bank."

Mentioning that concerted efforts had been made towards the recovery of NPAs, he said that the focus area remained further improvement in asset quality.

"To this end, the bank has taken up a number of steps including scaling down of exposure limits, reducing and exiting from high risk portfolios, reviewing and restructuring industry-wise exposure, and establishment of highly skilled corporate banking teams at strategic locations," Appasami said.

Mentioning that the networth of the bank as on March 31, 2003, stood at just Rs 2.44 crore, after adjusting the carry forward loss of Rs 265 crore for the year, he assured the shareholders that "with the ongoing capital infusion programme, the capital adequacy ratio is expected to reach the minimum statutory requirement of 9 per cent as prescribed by the Reserve Bank."

Ravi Appasami said that the bank was planning to roll out a wide range of new products in the retail segment such as educational loans, vehicle loans and retail commercial advances for small traders.

"The outlook for retail business certainly appears to be bright. I am confident that the bank will be back to its winning ways," he said.