Vikram Akula may be readying for long battle to return to SKS

With SKS Trusts demanding a board membership for Vikram Akula, will the erstwhile poster boy of microfinance in India return to the top post at the lender?

He has said he would love to be there.

“On my end, I would love to return to a leadership role at the company. After all, financial inclusion is my passion and I have spent nearly 15 years building SKS,” Akula has told the Business Standard in an interview .

SKS Trusts on Sunday demanded that Akula should be induced on the board of SKS Microfinance, as at 12.6 percent stake, the trust is now the single largest shareholder of India’s only listed micro lender.

SKS Trusts has five mutual benefit trusts whose beneficiaries are self-help groups of borrowers of SKS Microfinance.

It has been the trust’s long-standing request for a suitable representation on the board.

“The SKS Trusts are the founding promoter and largest shareholder, and we would like to help the company achieve its goal of promoting financial inclusion while also enhancing long-term shareholder value,” Gujja said.

“In line with this, and as an initial step, the Trusts have urged the Board to induct…Vikram Akula, its nominee, immediately. The appointment could be regularised at the ensuing Annual General Meeting,” he added.

Interestingly, Akula, the founder and ex-chairman of SKS Microfinance who was pushed out of the company in November 2011, had only last week sold nine lakh shares of SKS Microfinance.

This is also part of his game plan for a big role at the company.

“If I come back to SKS, I want to separate my personal wealth from the goal of creating a private-sector model of microfinance,” Akula told the BS.

He believes the model he gave shape to will promote financial inclusion.

“But people get distracted if my personal wealth is tied up with that broader goal,” he has said. So he sold his shares at a loss and is not eyeing any personal benefit from his involvement with the company.

“I would work on a voluntary basis,” he has said. It has to be remembered that SKS Micro and its peers were earlier criticised for charging usurious interest rates-some even charged more the 30 percent-from the extremely poor sections on the pretext of giving them funds.

In 2011, Andhra Pradesh, then a hotbed of microfinance initiatives, had brought about a law to control these institutions after customers complained that they were using strong arm tactics to recover the dues.

Akula’s move is aimed at dispelling any perception that his aim is to make a quick buck by exploiting the poor.

He and the trust expect the company to respond favourably to the request this time.

He, however, has not given a clear answer as to whether he will take legal recourse if the company rejects the proposal.

The trust has also asked the board to regularise Akula’s appointment at the company’s next annual general meeting.

According to the BS, the company has already got permission to postpone its AGM, which was slated for September, by three months.

Looks like, if at all, Akula will have to fight a long battle before he gets to head SKS.

With inputs from PTI