Tata Steel EGM votes to remove Nusli Wadia as independent director

Tata Steel shareholders, at a meeting late on Wednesday, voted overwhelmingly to remove Nusli Wadia as an independent director on the Tata Steel board. More than 90 per cent of shareholders voted in favour of Wadia's ouster.

Out of the total 625.5 million votes 567.9 million votes were in favour of removing Nusli Wadia from Tata Steel board, the company stated in a regulatory filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange in the morning today.

The company said out of its total shares of 971.2 million, 625.4 million votes were polled, which translate into 64.4 per cent.

"Total vote in favour of the resolution was 56.79 crore, ie, 90.80 per cent, and total vote against the motion was 5.75 crore, i.e. 9.20 per cent," it said.

"The motion (was) carried in favour of the resolution with overwhelming majority way beyond a special resolution hurdle of 75 per cent, even though this motion was an ordinary resolution requiring simple majority," the company added.

The promoter and promoter firms held 304.5 million shares in the company, of which 295.9 million voted.

It further said the total number of votes polled by non-promoter shareholders was 329.5 million, of which 272.0 million, that is 82.5 per cent, was in favour of the resolution.

The total number of votes polled against the proposal was 5.75 crore, accounting for 17.5 per cent of non-promoters.

The company claimed that even excluding the promoter votes, the voting result showed an overwhelming majority (3/4th) in favour of the resolution.

Institutional investors held a total of 426.4 million shares out of which 319.9 million, which is 75 per cent, were polled.

As much as 263.9 million of institutional shares, which is 82.5 per cent, voted in favour of Wadia's removal, Tata Steel said. The share of institutional shares which polled against the resolution was 56.0 million, that is 17.5 per cent.

Out of a total of 240.2 million retail shareholders, 9.614 million voted, with 8.121 million (84.4 per cent) in favour and 1.5 million (15.6 per cent) against.

Tata Sons had called for the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to vote out independent director Nusli Wadia from the board of Tata Group companies on the grounds that he was acting in concert with ousted Tata Sons chairman Cyrus Mistry.

By voting Wadia out, the shareholders have shown strong support to Tata Sons interim chairman Ratan Tata.

However, Wadia has obtained an interim order from the Bombay High Court asking Tata Group to keep Wadia's post on the Tata Steel board vacant until the court disposes of the case.