Activist Shareholder in Tussle With India’s Largest Corp Travel Manager Yatra
Photo Credit: The Kohinoor suite at the Oberoi, New Delhi, which is part of Oberoi Hotels and Resorts. India's largest corporate travel manager, Yatra, faces a shareholder fight. Oberoi
Skift Take
The activist investor Maguire has raised fair points that Yatra has taken too long to hire a chief financial officer and to hold board elections. But otherwise, CEO Dhruv Shringi and the management team have led the company well.
An activist investor has taken a stake in Yatra, India's largest online corporate travel services provider. Timothy L. Maguire Investment Trust has begun agitating for change in a way that Yatra's management hasn't been forced to cope with before.
Yatra has more than 700 corporate customers and 35,000 small- and mid-sized clients for its business travel services.
Activist Timothy Maguire said he wanted to get a director appointed to Yatra's board to advocate for operational changes and the restructuring of its corporate governance. Maguire published an open letter (embedded below) that called for management to exert shrewder oversight of strategy, product development, and capital allocation.
His complaints included that the company has not had a chief financial officer since October 2019. Maguire also cited last year's ill-fated attempted acquisition by Ebix, a conglomerate with a checkered legal history, as an example of incompetent management. He also sought more product cha
