Aditya Puri sells shares worth Rs 843 crore in HDFC Bank

MUMBAI: Aditya Puri, managing director and chief executive officer of the country’s largest private sector lender HDFC Bank has sold 95% of his stake valued Rs 843 crore in the bank this week. According to insider trading data published by the stock exchanges on Saturday, Aditya Puri has sold 74.2 lakh shares of the bank between July 21 and Jul 24. Before this transaction, Puri held 77.96 lakh shares or 0.14% of banks equity capital.

Aditya Puri received 6.82 lakh ESOPs in FY2020. Shares of HDFC Bank rallied 46% since its yearly low of Rs 765 touched on March 24.

Aditya Puri who took home Rs 18.92 crore salary including perquisites but excluding stock options in the financial year 2019-20 sold shares worth Rs 200 crore in HDB Financial Services, the unlisted NBFC arm of the private lender in December last year. These shares were held through a family trust Vistra ITCL (India). In 2013, he transferred his shares to his family as part of the succession planning. The family’s shareholding was transferred to the Trust, Vistra ITCL.

The term of Aditya Puri who has been the managing director and chief executive since 1994 when the bank was set up ends on October 20, 2020. HDFC Bank board in November last year set up a search committee to identify his successor. Aditya Puri will act as an advisor to the 6-member group comprising Shyamala Gopinath, Sanjiv Sachar, M D Ranganath, Sandeep Parekh, Srikanth Nadhamuni and Keki Mistry.

Insiders Sashidhar Jagdishan, Kaizad Barucha and Sunil Garg of Citibank are some of the top contenders to succeed Puri.