Mr. Ravi Thambiayah of the Renuka group of companies which together with related parties own close to 10% of the National Development Bank (NDB) has accepted an invitation to take a board seat on the NDB, he confirmed.

Thambiayah becomes the first shareholder/director of the NDB since Mr. Dhammika Perera who bought substantially into the bank requested and was granted a board seat. He resigned this position after he sold off his NDB shares taking a big capital gain.

The NDB had sometime ago sought Central Bank approval to invite Thambiayah to fill a vacancy on its board and had to hold up the invitation pending the receipt of this approval.

In papers filed before the Commercial High Court, Janashakthi Insurance which has acquired a substantial slice of the NDB claimed that most of the directors of the bank owned no shares with the board collectively holding a mere 15,050 shares out of an issued capital of nearly 54.6 million ten-rupee shares which is less than 0503% of the bank’s issued capital.

The NDB has refused to register in excess of 10% held by Janashakthi and connected parties and this matter is now before court.

Analysts said that Janashakthi, earlier this month divested part of its holdings held through the National Insurance Corporation on a mega deal on the Colombo Stock Exchange has been fighting the NDB board’s refusal to register some of its shares and this matter too is currently before the courts.

The effort to win an interim order requiring the registration of these shares have not been upheld but the Commercial High Court has made order for the NDB board to show cause as to why they should not be removed from their positions over some accusations made against them by some of the shareholders.

Asked whether the invitation to Thambiayah to join the NDB board was a response to the Janashakthi argument that the directors of the bank hardly owned any shares, a NDB spokesman said that Central Bank approval to invite Thambiayah on the board had been sought before Janashakthi’s papers were filed in the courts.