(LiveMint)
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC) has replaced a government nominee director on board of Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) with its nominee as it consolidates control over the company it recently acquired.
ONGC, which had in January completed the acquisition of the government’s 51.11% stake in HPCL for Rs36,915 crore, has appointed its director (finance) Subhash Kumar on the company board, people familiar with the matter said. He has replaced Sushma Taishete Rath, joint secretary in ministry of petroleum and natural gas. Till now HPCL had two government nominee directors—Rath and Sandeep Poundrik, joint secretary (refineries) of the oil ministry. After the appointment of Kumar, there remains only one government nominee director on HPCL.
The people said ONGC wants the one government nominee director on HPCL board to be the same person as on its board. ONGC board has two government directors—Amar Nath, joint secretary – exploration in the oil ministry, and Rajiv Bansal, additional secretary & financial adviser in the ministry. It wants Bansal to be appointed on HPCL board in place of Poundrik to have a common link between the two boards, they said.
After acquiring government’s stake, HPCL is now a subsidiary of ONGC. Like its other major subsidiaries—Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) and ONGC Videsh Ltd, ONGC decided to nominate just one director on the board of HPCL, the people said.
