Shahzaad Dalal, vice chairman of IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (IIML) has resigned as an independent director on the board of DB Realty, whose co-promoter and India’s youngest billionaire Shahid Balwa is being questioned by investigating authorities over alleged financial irregularities that caused loss to the Indian exchequer in the 2G telecom spectrum auctions.
Dalal has 26 years of financial markets and investment experience having been involved in private equity transactions aggregating over $9.5 billion. Prior to IIML, that manages various private equity and realty funds, Dalal served as the CEO of IL&FS's Asset Management Strategic Business Unit.
In the past, he was also actively involved in the initial public offerings of Indraprastha Gas and Shoppers' Stop. Dalal joined DB Realty board in April 2007.
DB Realty disclosed that, “Shahzaad Dalal has resigned as director of the company w.e.f. February 01, 2011 in order to implement IL&FS Group policies on independent directorships.”
DB Realty, that went public in January 2010, also counts amongst its independent directors names such as retired bureaucrat Karun Chandra Srivastava and Chandan Bhatttacharya, former managing director at country’s largest lender SBI. These other outside directors are yet to comment on the developments.
As of now, the investigations involve primarily the co-promoter of the DB Realty. DB Realty is backed by Trinity Capital (Eleven) Ltd besides attracting investments from IL&FS Realty Fund LLC that was later transferred to IIRF Holdings VI Ltd.