Sunil Godhwani’s exit underlines Religare’s slide

Sunil Godhwani, who oversaw the growth of ReligareEntrerprises from a small non-banking finance company, quit its board on Wednesday amid deepeningtroubles for the financial services major. Godhwani is the fourth director to quit in the past few months. The resignation comes at a time when the company’s fundraising plans and proposed related party transactions are under scrutiny fromlenders and proxy advisory firms. In April, Monish Kant Dutt, a nominee of IFC, resigned fromReligare board. Dutt’s resignation came less than two weeks after RaviMehrotra, a non-executive director, stepping down from Religare board.Following this, the company postponed its FY17 results andeventually released it with qualified opinion of auditors. The auditors were,among other things, concerned over regulatory scrutiny over loans given togroup entities by the lending subsidiary Religare Finvest. This further led torating firms downgrading the papers of the company and its subsidiaries. On July 28, another .