Back on the road

Finally the big one

After years of being conservative, it’s always interesting to watch a group going mega. Running a small chain of hotels, restaurants, ice cream parlours, pastry shops, food processing plants and a cyber bar has been what the Nirula brothers have been doing rather carefully. Now they have finally decided to expand aggressively. And since it’s coming after such a long time, it obviously is no ordinary growth plan. It looks like a well thought out Rs 90 crore expansion plan in which 120 quick service restaurants will be set up, in 20 cities across the country by 2006.

The tycoons have even employed new teams for sales and operations for this very purpose. After dividing the country into 6 zones, they will very reluctantly apply the franchisee model to work in four of them. This is something new because they have always believed in owning and managing restaurants. But the group has arranged things in such a way that most of the investments are being put in by the franchisees themselves while their contribution is only 40 per cent. Franchisees are already being appointed from places like Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Chandigarh, Gujarat, UP, MP, Uttaranchal and Maharashtra.

But the real management of these plans, expected to generate revenues of Rs 150 crore within the next three years, seems to be the anxiety of Vikas Atri, the technical adviser. An ex-employee of McDonalds and Life Spring, he joined Nirulas a few months ago, round about the same time the idea of expansion entered Nirula’s head. This is one growth trajectory the markets will watch carefully.

M&M’s New Year hopes

After receiving the National Award for R&D 2003 for his vehicle ‘Scorpio’, Anand Mahindra hasn’t been relaxing. Instead he is been busy doing his homework and is now supposed to be keeping his powder dry, to pounce on a big bird—the South Korean SUV maker Ssangyong Motors.

The company, and specially Anand are known to be conservative bidders and are unlikely to go on a global splurge. While insiders at M&M are still denying the tycoon is among those in line to buy Ssangyong, they are saying he is simply digging for market information.

This will be Mahindra’s second attempt at bidding internationally, the first being for Finnish tractor company Valtra, which ended on a sour note. The US farm equipment major Agco won it by bidding more than double the amount the tycoon had put up. The Mahindra’s are already the wholesale distributors for Tong Yang Moolsan, the South Korean tractor maker in the US. If he does manage to swing the Ssangyong Motors deal next year, the tycoon’s New Year will begin the rightway.

Dilip Cherian runs public relations firm Perfect Relations.
Send your insider dope to dilipcherian@now-india.net.in