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| Sanmar restructures its corporate management |
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| N Sankar, Chairman, Sanmar group with N Kumar,
Vice Chairman of the group. |
| The family-owned Sanmar group has taken a
major step forward in the process of separation of ownership
and operational management, in keeping with the modern doctrine
of corporate governance. The group has appointed professional
Managing Directors for four of its major companies engaged in
the core businesses of Chlorochemicals, Speciality Chemicals,
Engineering and Shipping, and at the Corporate Office. |
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| N Sankar, Chairman, Sanmar group (at the centre),
to his right N Kumar, Vice Chairman, Sanmar group, with the
newly appointed MDs of the group. L to R: P S Jayaraman, MD,
Chemplast Sanmar Ltd., M S Sekhar, MD, Sanmar Speciality Chemicals
Limited, B Natraj, MD-Corporate, the Sanmar group, M N Radhakrishnan,
MD, Sanmar Engineering Corporation and Capt B Chakrapani, MD,
Sanmar Shipping Limited. |
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| N Sankar is the Chairman of the group and N Kumar
the Vice Chairman. The Managing Directors appointed are P S Jayaraman
for Chemplast Sanmar Limited, Capt B Chakrapani for Sanmar Shipping
Limited, M S Sekhar for Sanmar Speciality Chemicals Limited, M N Radhakrishnan
for Sanmar Engineering Corporation and B Natraj as Managing Director-Corporate.
For the time being the entrepreneurial thrust in the Software-IT sectors
will be directed by Kumar. The group has a strong professional team
of about 800 running its 20-odd individual profit centres, and the
Managing Directors would work through individual profit centre managers,
in their different areas of responsibility. |
| The Managing Directors, who are well qualified and
highly experienced, have taken office on September 1, 2000 and would
have complete freedom and opportunity to manage the businesses that
they are responsible for, within the parameters of the Sanmar group’s
management philosophy. |
| N Sankar said, “We believe our group has always
been professionally managed, in the sense that the phrase is normally
understood. There is nobody occupying a senior management position
because of his relationship with the owners; all decisions are objective
and the management process is transparent. However, our group’s
shareholding is high in all the businesses that it manages”. |
| “Thus, while it has always been our effort
to separate ownership and management, there is a tendency to centralise
decision making around me and Kumar as long as we are involved in
the operations, no matter how much we resist it. The current step
is therefore to clearly distance ourselves from operational management,
and put the authority and responsibility in the hands of the MDs”.
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| Sankar added, “We think we’ve taken
what is almost a final step towards separation of ownership and management.
We are trying to satisfy public norms of corporate governance”. |
| The management structure under the MDs has been
finalised to ensure institutionalisation of management practices,
and provide opportunities for growth, while clearly identifying potential
successors. The MDs are expected to meet weekly under the aegis of
the Corporate Executive Committee (CEC) to quickly thrash out common
issues relating to management. |
| The erstwhile Corporate Management Board (CMB) has
not only been retained, but broadbased to function along with the
CEC, on common issues such as HR, IR, Finance, IT etc. |
| Kumar will oversee the group’s entry into
IT. So far, Indchem Dot Com has funded six B2B, education and heritage
portals. More recently, the company has collaborated with Silk Route
of Singapore and renamed itself as Silk Route Indchem Dot Com to play
the role of an incubator to prospective dot com ventures. Indchem
Software Technology, will eventually tackle offshore development of
products, particularly of the telecom and Internet sectors. |
| In his new capacity as MD, P S Jayaraman will assume
charge of the PVC and chlorochemicals businesses. In addition, he
will also be responsible for managing Cabot Sanmar, a joint venture
company that manufactures fumed silica. |
| Jayaraman hopes that Chemplast Sanmar will improve
its profit margins from the last quarter of this year, having invested
Rs.60 crore on expanding the speciality resins capacity at the PVC
and chlorochemicals plants at Mettur. The company has acquired a second
hand plant from NOCIL for this. Given the cyclical nature of the business,
the concentration is on niche products. |
| Captain B Chakrapani, MD, Sanmar Shipping said that
although the company operated five bulk carriers and three product
tankers, it reported a loss last year. It is expected to bounce back
this year and will look at acquiring additional tonnage. The company
will also look at other areas, especially the lucrative LNG transportation
business. |
| M N Radhakrishnan, MD of Sanmar Engineering Corporation
(SEC), which has nine operating joint ventures, said that they had
become globally competitive units, emerging as best cost and value
suppliers to their international collaborators. It was also proposed
to make SEC a legal entity so that it could hold investments and raise
funds, he added. |
| M S Sekhar will be the MD of Sanmar Speciality Chemicals
which manufactures a range of speciality chemicals used by flavours,
fragrances, pharmaceuticals and polymer industries. As part of its
foray into contract research, it is setting up a state-of-the-art
facility in Chennai at a cost of $ 2.5 million. |
| B Natraj as MD-Corporate of the Sanmar group, will
coordinate the other joint ventures in the group, including Atofina
Peroxides India Ltd., Bayer Sanmar Ltd., and Dragoco India Limited.
He will also be responsible for the group’s proposed entry into
the insurance sector in association with AMP of Australia which some
time ago took over Sanmar’s original collaborator GIO. |
| Sankar said, “We three (Kumar, Vijay and himself)
will not hold any part to compete with professionals. The five MDs
are professionals who know our group culture and value system”. |
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