Former SBI boss Arundhati Bhattacharya to join Piramal's financial services business: report

Former SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya is reportedly joining billionaire Ajay Piramal's financial services business after her cooling-off period ended last week.

According to a report in The Times of India, a Piramal Enterprises board meeting later this month is expected to discuss bringing on board Bhattacharya. It said that Piramal has been scouting for top bankers because the RBI is bringing in stricter regulations for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).

Financial services have become the leading business of Ajay Piramal-led Piramal Enterprises, overtaking its pharma manufacturing and other healthcare services businesses.

Consolidated revenues of the company increased by 24% to Rs 10,639 crore in FY2018, of which income from financial services was Rs 4,982 crore. This is a 49% jump over the previous year. Income from pharmaceutical business, mainly its traditional business of contract manufacturing for big pharma, grew only 11% to Rs 4,322 crore in FY2018.  

Bhattacharya joined SBI in 1977 as a probationary officer and went on to become the first woman to head the bank as Chairman in 2013. After a four-year stint at the helm, she retired from the SBI last year in October.

In her 40-year career, Bhattacharya held several positions at the SBI. She handled various departments such as foreign exchange, treasury, retail operations, human resources and investment banking. Bhattacharya was also the chief executive of SBI's Capital Markets.

Under her tenure as the chairperson of SBI, Bhattacharya took several technology initiatives such as launching fully digital branches and wallet 'Buddy'.

Piramal Enterprises operates in areas like financial services, contract manufacturing, critical care, health data analytics and consumer healthcare. The last three businesses are much smaller compared to financial services or contract manufacturing. Apart from these businesses under Piramal Enterprises, the Group also runs Piramal Glass and a real estate company Piramal Realty, led by Ajay Piramal's son Anand.

Growth in financial services, a business which Ajay Piramal entered after selling the company's flagship pharmaceutical formulation business to Abbott for a record $2.9 billion in 2010, was primarily driven by increase in size of loan book, which grew by 69% during last year to Rs 42,168 crore as against Rs 24,975 crore in FY2017. Construction Finance now accounts for 60% of the company's real estate loan book.

Recently, the proposed merger of financial services companies IDFC and the Shriram Group, in which Piramal Enterprises has strategic investments and Ajay Piramal is the Chairman, was aborted due to difference among the merging companies.