The board of the proposed new joint venture between AirAsia and Tatas to start a domestic airlines will be constituted with six members which includes entrepreneur Tony Fernandes.
AirAsia with a 49% stake will have two board members which includes Kamarudin Bin Meranun apart from Fernandes. Tata Sons with 30% will also have two members which include R Venkataramanan and Bharat Vasani and Telestra Tradeplace with 20% stake will be represented in the board by Arun Bhatia. The sixth board member shall be an Indian national who will be appointed as non executive chairman of the board upon agreement of all the three shareholders.
Fernandes is trying to rope in Ratan Tata for this slot. The move of having four of the six members in the board as citizens of India is in consonance with the FDI policy that permits foreign carriers to invest up to 49% only if the board is made up of majority of Indian citizens. In its application to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the three partners have committed that they will, not later than fourteen days, infuse an amount of Rs 50 crore ( US $9 million) in the proportion set of their shareholding to set up the joint venture company.
21/02/13 Surajeet Das Gupta/Business Standard
