SB Mainak has resigned as Chairman of CARE Ratings, which could be a fallout of the collapse of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS).

While the company said in a regulatory filing that the resignation was “due to personal reasons”, sources said that SEBI is understood to have asked the rating agency for his removal following the IL&FS crisis.

Mainak was earlier the Managing Director of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India and was inducted on the board of CARE Ratings in August 2015.

He is the second executive to have quit the rating agency after the financial mess at IL&FS came to light.

In December last year, Rajesh Mokashi had resigned as Managing Director and CEO of CARE Ratings. He was sent on leave on July 18 pending the completion of the examination of an anonymous complaint received by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and forwarded to the rating agency.

Credit rating agency ICRA had also asked its CEO and MD Naresh Takkar to step down based on similar complaints.

In December SEBI had also slapped a penalty of ₹25 lakh each on CARE Ratings and ICRA for lack of “due diligence” in credit ratings to non-convertible debentures of IL&FS. The rating agencies came under the scanner because they had given a positive rating to IL&FS, just months ahead of the infrastructure lender landing in a repayment crisis. On Thursday, CARE Ratings scrip lost 6.64 per cent and closed at ₹542.85 apiece on the BSE.

 

Related Topics