CALCUTTA, Jan 9: The "sacrifice" made by ITC in effecting the merger of ITC Classic, its associate company, with Industrial Credit & Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) has been estimated to be around Rs 125 crore (including a restructuring charge of about Rs 55 crore), chairman Y C Deveshwar told the shareholders at the company's extraordinary general meeting (EGM) here on Friday.This cost comprises the discounted value of the loss of interest income on the Rs 350-crore capital infusion into ITC Classic for a period of 20 years. Deveshwar said that ITC is likely to incur a restructuring charge of a maximum of Rs 55 crore as part of the overall amalgamation scheme.
Notable absentees at Friday's EGM were Tapan Ganguli, Basudeb Sen, P V Narasimham and A A F Rodrigues of BAT, who has replaced Timothy Lord as the alternate director to Richard Pilbeam. Justifying the decision to hand over ITC Classic to ICICI, he told the shareholders that this was done to minimise the cost to the shareholders of ITC.
"The board of ITC considered the whole issue in detail and came to the conclusion that this was in the best interest of all concerned. There was little ITC could have done to get a better deal as beggars cannot be choosers. In any case, too much analysis leads to paralysis," he reminded the shareholders.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
