KARACHI, May 3: The outgoing managing director of Karachi Stock Exchange “earned” a neat package of Rs6 million in cash and two Toyota cars as ‘compensation for loss of office’.
On return from a month’s leave, a semblance of sanity prevailed in a meeting between Mr M A Lodhi and the KSE board.
The previous meeting had ended in a board room brawl with the KSE MD refusing to concede to the board’s demand to resign and even threatened to go to courts if he were fired.
The agreement, if not the ‘deal’ (the latter word could evoke emotions among concerned) was sealed and signed on Wednesday, allowing disbursement of the remaining 11 months’ remuneration to Mr Lodhi, in cash and kind.
The MD’s three-year contract was to expire in March next year. The KSE MD received, in all around Rs8 million as compensation for “early retirement”, which Mr Lodhi preferred to term “bonus”.
He said he thought it fit to “retire” but said that the “bonus” was slightly lower than the sum suggested.
Mr Lodhi fell out of favour, particularly with the outgoing head of the board, when he resisted re-establishment of chairman’s office in the administration block and few other issues.
“The lack of coordination between the management and the board was causing concern to the market participants and it is best that the issue has been resolved,” a sitting member of the board says.
The chairman of the KSE board Zaffar A Khan also resigned. If at all he cherished ambition to lead the KSE management, he has landed a far better job of flying PIA planes as the chairman of the national flag carrier.
The all-weather Mr Yacoob Memon is again the interim MD. The SECP already desperate in search of suitably qualified staff would have now to find a new MD for the KSE.
A few professional people are understood to have declined the offer. And understandably so.
There is something spooky about the MD’s office at KSE. None of the four who have sat on that chair were either entirely comfortable or, left truly happy. An exception could be Moin M Fudda, the immediate predecessor of Mr Lodhi. But if Mr Lodhi was a “man of few words”, Mr Fudda would come up with a new ‘press release’ even before the ink of the earlier had dried up.
He was, however, a firm disciplinarian. The first in the office of MD after it was created by the SECP under the capital market reforms were introduced, was Mr Shahid Ghaffar. But the poor man remained powerless and confined to the four walls of his pigeon hole office.
He was followed by the then young Noman Ahmed, who started with a sound and fury but ended his term meekly passing on trophies to the KSE chairman who handed them to the chief guest for distribution at KSE top companies awards. And the rest is history.
A big stock broker yawned at the suggestion that Rs8 million was an ample sum as a ‘parting gift’ to the MD Mr Lodhi. “Petty cash”, says he, “considering that the man was managing the market, which now is the size of US$60billion.”
