Shares of India's Muthoot Finance drop after chairman's death

The financier, grandson of the gold financing company’s founding chairman, is credited with growing the company into a pan-India name and scaling its presence beyond the southern state of Kerala, where it is headquartered.

Shares of Indian non-banking financial firm Muthoot Finance Ltd fell the most in nearly two months on Monday, after group chairman M.G. George Muthoot died over the weekend, with media reports saying he fell from his fourth floor house in New Delhi. The financier, grandson of the gold financing company’s founding chairman, is credited with growing the company into a pan-India name and scaling its presence beyond the southern state of Kerala, where it is headquartered. George Muthoot took charge as chairman in 1993, overseeing its expansion into more than 4,500 branches across the country and growing its market capital nearly eight folds in the past decade.