Shetty named Canara helmsman

The finance ministry has appointed V P Shetty, the present chairman and managing director (CMD) of UCO Bank, as the CMD of Canara Bank.

Shetty started his career in 1968 at Canara, as a clerk. In a parallel development the ministry is likely to bring in V Sridhar to take up the reins at UCO.

V Sridhar at present is the CMD of National Housing Bank (NHB). He was earlier executive director at UCO before its present ED, B K Datta took charge. Datta will hold charge until a new CMD is appointed at UCO.

Datta despite his experience would not be able to take over as the CMD of UCO because of the rider that stipulates that a new chairman is required to have at least two years of residual service when he takes over.

Datta has only 13 months of service left. Shetty was instrumental in turning UCO from a weak bank to a profitable one. He joined UCO as its executive director in October 1999 and was promoted to the post of CMD in 2000. Under his chairmanship UCO approached the equity market and offloaded 24 per cent of its equity.

Shetty is 57 years of age and has three more years of service. "I have already taken charge of Canara Bank and have handed over my responsibilities as a CMD to B K Datta, the present ED," Shetty said.

"I would be leaving for Mumbai tomorrow," he added. Shetty has also prepared UCO as a possible takeover candidate when the industry was talking to consolidation through M&A.

Meanwhile, UCO has targeted a Rs 1,200 crore operating profit in 2004-05 against Rs 948 crore achieved last year.

The bank's long term target is to touch the Rs 1,00,000 crore business mark by 2007. It has targeted deposit base of Rs 46,600 crore in 2005 with advances pegged at Rs 28,400 crore. Investment is expected to touch Rs 21,500 crore in 2004-05.