The term ‘stock guru’, for an analyst whose predictions are highly valued by investors, has taken on a whole new dimension in India. Chitra Ramkrishna, a former top woman of India’s largest stock exchange NSE, was guided for years in crucial business decisions by a spiritual guru with whom she routinely shared confidential and price-sensitive information.
The ex-top woman will be fined $400,000 and banned from working for a stock exchange or other financial institution for three years, the Indian stock market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) announced on Friday. According to an investigative report, the guru had access to financial records, forecasts, business plans, managerial agendas, personnel assessments and proposed top appointments.
Ramkrishna (1963), according to the business magazine fortune one of the 50 most powerful business women in the world, was a founding member of the NSE (National Stock Exchange of India) in the 1990s, and ran the exchange as CEO between 2013 and 2016. She says she met the unnamed yogi more than 20 years ago on the banks of the Ganges and has been counseling him personally and professionally ever since.
Based on Ramkrishna’s email correspondence, the regulator states that the spiritual director actually called the shots at the stock exchange, and the top woman was no more than a ‘puppet in his hands’. The SEBI speaks of a “shocking, even unimaginable situation” that could have shaken the stock market, one of the largest in the world with a market capitalization of USD 1 trillion. Indian gurus are regularly discredited for financial malpractice and self-enrichment.
Informal advice
Ramkrishna herself does not see the problem that way. “Business leaders often seek informal advice from coaches, mentors or other seniors,” she explained. “I thought such advice would help me better fulfill my role.” Moreover, according to her, neither the stock market nor investors have ever experienced any disadvantage from her actions.
According to insiders, the scandal shows how flawed supervision of the Indian stock exchange is, bizarre given the strict rules that apply to listed companies. The case is extra painful for the NSU because of the proposed IPO, analyst Sucheta Dalal told the BBC. According to her, also the reason that the supervisor is now cleaning up, although she calls the investigation sloppy and the punishment too light.
The identity of the stock market guru, meanwhile, remains a mystery. Ramkrishna designates him only as a “spiritual force which could manifest itself wherever it pleased and which had no physical or spatial coordinates,” but which “dwelled chiefly in the mountain ranges of the Himalayas.”