MUMBAI: Bank of America (BofA) has asked three investment bankers in India to leave after probes confirmed a whistleblower complaint that claimed these individuals had tipped off certain investors of upcoming secondary offerings, people aware of the matter said.
The US investment bank declined to comment on the three forced exits about which a British media outlet reported earlier Friday.
Debasish Purohit, co-head of investment banking, Subhrajit Roy, head of capital markets, and Vikram Khaitan who was also part of the investment banking team, were the executives fired Thursday, said the people cited above.
Purohit, Roy and Khaitan did not reply to messages on their phones seeking comment.
All three executives were placed on administrative leave in September pending investigation following a whistleblower complaint that said the executives had tipped off certain investors of upcoming secondary offerings, allowing those investors to “front run” the stock sales and profit from non-public information.
The exact nature or manner of the alleged front-running – and the names of the legal beneficiaries of the exercise – are not known.
A Financial Times report in September had said that the investigation is looking at a number of deals but is focused on a March $200 million stock sale for the Sun Life insurance subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla.
The bank had hired outside investigators to examine whether bankers in its Asian operations sent messages or held meetings with hedge funds and others in advance of large secondary stock offerings on behalf of its corporate clients.
BofA had discovered that the Indian bankers set up meetings with certain investors prior to the offerings and failed to disclose the meetings as required.
