SINGAPORE — In the eyes of many minority shareholders in Singapore, Mr Narayana Iyer Narayanan was an outspoken fighter for the rights of these retail investors, many of whom did not have deep financial knowledge of the companies they had invested in.
Armed with a degree in mathematics, Mr Narayanan started his career as a stockbroker in the 1950s. In 1968, he became the first Indian director of a stockbroker, Ong & Co. Later, he joined Alliance Securities as a director. He retired in 1999 at the age of 72. Together with Mr Denis Distant, who was also active at the F&N meetings in the past, Mr Narayanan questioned the late Dr Michael Fam, then executive chairman of F&N, on the decision to pay non-executive directors who had served on the board for at least 10 years handsome retirement bonuses.
As this journalist was covering listed companies in the early 2000s, when the media had to beg, borrow or steal a proxy from shareholders to gain entry into AGMs or EGMs, Mr Narayanan was a great help. Often, he held court with a group of journalists after the meetings, kindly summing up the key issues brought up to management, their responses and minority shareholders' concerns.