Software major Infosys on Friday said it has begun consultations with its investors on adhering to high governance standards, as announced on August 25.
"We have started shareholder consultations to determine what actions the company should take to ensure high governance standards," said the company in a regulatory filing on the BSE.
"During the consultations, no material unpublished price sensitive information or financial updates will be provided," added the filing made by Company Secretary A.G.S. Manikantha.
The filing came a week after the $10-billion IT major's co-founder Nandan Nilekani returned as its non-executive Chairman on August 24, after its five Board members, including former Chairman R. Seshasayee, Co-Chair Ravi Venkatesan, executive Vice-Chairman Vishal Sikka and two Independent Directors Jeffrey Lehman and John Etchemendy resigned on the same day.
The high standard of corporate governance in the company came to the fore after its founder N.R. Narayana Murthy red-flagged it against the previous Board on huge severance pay to its former Chief Financial Officer Rajiv Bansal and the acquisition of a software firm Panaya in early 2015.
Recently in a call with shareholders, Murthy defended his stance in the standoff that went on for several months between founders and the previous board.
He outlined the specific issues he had with the former board, which mainly was around the severance pay given to ex-CFO Rajiv Bansal and the lack of transparency by the board around it. He even listed down several points made by a whistleblower complaint which came in February 2017.
Apart from urging shareholders to always speak up, questions and protect the institution, he reaffirmed his faith in the new board under the leadership of Nandan Nilekani to bring back the level of governance required, calling Nilekani a ‘stickler for good corporate governance’.
In addition, Infosys has also informed the stock exchange in a BSE filing that Nilekani will not receive any remuneration for his current post. It said Nilekani's office as director shall be subject to retirement by rotation and the remuneration proposed to be paid to him is nil, reports the Economic Times.
Meanwhile, U B Pravin Rao, the interim CEO of the company and who holds 5,55,520 shares, will get the same salary he was drawing as chief operating officer.
With IANS inputs