NEW DELHI: AS expected, the 16th annual general meeting (AGM) of IndiGo was mostly about the bitter dispute between the two promoters — Rakesh Gangwal and Rahul Bhatia. While Gangwal decided to give the meeting a miss, it was Bhatia who was left to face and answer queries of shareholders on the issue.
Not only shareholders raised concerns, but they even suggested ways to end the tussle. In one such suggestion, a shareholder asked the two promoters “to go for a two-day trip and not talk about business during the vacation”. Responding to the suggestion, Bhatia said that he would consider it.
When asked why Gangwal and another board member Anupam Khanna were not present in the meeting, Bhatia said, “Main hoon naa (I am there).” Bhatia even hinted that the promoters are coming to common conclusion when he said that he does not think that there has been any public forum where he hasn’t acknowledged Bhatia’s contributions.
Gangwal on Friday too hinted that he is ready to smoke peace pipe. He said the company board has approved a new policy for related-party transactions (RPTs) and has decided to close an open issue if the articles of association are amended at the AGM.
Responding to shareholders’ query on the issue, IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta said value of RPTs that the company has signed with co-promoter Bhatia’s firms is about `156 crore and accounted for less than 1 per cent of the company’s total revenues of `30,000 crore. He added, “There is not a single case, where RPT is not at arm’s length.”
Gangwal and Bhatia have been involved in a bitter dispute over disagreements over corporate governance standards and RTPs between IndiGo and Bhatia’s InterGlobe Enterprises.
On the matter of whistleblower complaint, Dutta told shareholders that the firm continues to have a robust whistleblower mechanism and added that Chairman M Damodaran, has not received any whistleblower complaint till now.
About future plans, Dutta said the firm is looking at a growth of 30 per cent a year over the next few years, adding much of its growth in future will come from international expansion and it is looking at an option to buy A321 XLR.