New Delhi, June 30 (IANS) Shares of India’s largest private lender, HDFC Bank, traded lower in early trade on Tuesday after the bank appointed former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar as its new part-time Chairman for a period of three years.

The private lender’s stock declined as much as 0.62 per cent to Rs 794, hitting an intraday low on the BSE at around 9:45 am.

At the last count, the stock was trading at Rs 794.55, down 0.56 per cent.

The selling pressure came after the bank — in a regulatory filing on Monday — announced Kumar’s appointment as part-time chairman.

Kumar succeeds Atanu Chakraborty — who stepped down as part-time chairman earlier this year — citing concerns over practices that he said were not aligned with his personal values and ethics.

Following his resignation in March, Keki Mistry was appointed interim part-time chairman to ensure continuity until a permanent appointment was made.

Meanwhile, reports said HDFC Bank’s Governance, Nomination and Remuneration Committee (NRC) did not consider the reappointment of the bank’s chief executive officer (CEO) at its meeting on Monday.

According to the reports, the bank is expected to initiate the CEO reappointment process shortly and prefers to have a permanent chairman in place before taking up the matter.

Moreover, the banking stock has touched a 52-week high of Rs 1,020.35 and a 52-week low of Rs 726.75 on the BSE. In the last one year , it declined by over 20 per cent and about 20 per cent in the last six months.

Additionally, NDTV Profit has reported that former HDFC Bank Chairman Atanu Chakraborty has described the legal review of his resignation as being caveated and superfluous, saying it focused largely on compliance issues instead of the broader concerns he had raised about certain business practices at the bank.

–IANS

ag/