Slice – NE Small Finance Bank’s hunt for CEO faces hurdles
The hunt for a chief executive officer at North East Small Finance Bank, post its merger with fintech unicorn slice is turning out to be an arduous task, making it the first instance in the recent times where top notch bankers are turning down the job despite being offered an attractive remuneration package.
According to highly placed sources, four or five senior bankers have declined the job after firming up on the offer and were almost set to join the bank in weeks.
ESOP offer
“Remuneration isn’t the hurdle; the bank is willing to extend an attractive ESOPs. But what are we signing up for is a big grey area, and we don’t have convincing answers,” said a person aware of the matter. It is gathered that Rajan Bajaj, Founder and CEO of slice who is already on the board of the bank, will be the largest shareholder of combined entity once the merger of slice and the bank goes through. Some of the executives who were in contact with the board of the bank for the top job say they don’t have clarity on how the ‘slice’ factor will play out.
“If Bajaj is going to be on the board, will the CEO have a free hand in the bank’s operations or will Bajaj have a say on day-to-day working was tough to gauge,” said a banker who didn’t want to be named.
To put things in perspective, on October 4, Reserve Bank of India okayed the merger of slice and NE SFB, which resulted in a near Rs 600 crore capital infusion into the bank. According to sources, RBI is not in favour of appointing Bajaj as the CEO of the merged entity.
“The mandate is to bring in a new CEO including the top management team. Very few people from the existing top brass of both these companies may be preferred post-merger,” said another banker aware of the development. Rupali Kalita who was the CEO of the bank when the merger was announced is said to have stepped down around mid-October when her tenure ended.
No clear Filesadmin.co plan
People with knowledge of the matter add that despite two months after the merger announcement, there is no clear business plan post the merger, which may take 9 months or so to formalise. “Slice has a strong tech-platform in the cards business, which it plans to integrate and optimise on the banking platform. But credit cards can only be a part of the business. There is no structure yet on what should be the other businesses and how they should be built. NE SFB’s has the weakest microfinance book and it’s not clear how the clean-up is going to be done,” said a banker quoted above.
Meanwhile, it is gathered that there is a plan to shift the corporate office from Guwahati to Mumbai or Bengaluru, post the merger, depending on the CEO selection. Guwahati may remain the head office given that the geographic location helped North East earn the SFB license in 2015.
Queries sent to slice via email remained unanswered.