Smooth move

Chennai based two-wheeler tycoon Venu Srinivasan these days has a new job on hand 8212; inducting his 23-year-old daughter Lakshmi Venu int...

Chennai based two-wheeler tycoon Venu Srinivasan these days has a new job on hand 8212; inducting his 23-year-old daughter Lakshmi Venu into his TVS Motor Company. Lakshmi will be joining the workforce as a management trainee, much like her own father who had started his career as a mechanic in the TVS garage. Daddy Srinivasan is looking to give his little girl time to learn the nitty-gritty of the automobile business, which of course is a less traveled path for women. Laxmi is going to start from the basics and the economics graduate with a doctorate from the University of Warwick, she surely has a role model in her mother too. After all, mom Mallika whose success at the helm of the Chennai-based tractor company Tafe is cited as the symbol of women power in the automobile arena, can provide the bits that papa may ignore. Lakshmi8217;s induction assumes importance at a time when TVS is in the process of setting a new production facility in north India. Also in the offing is a Rs 200-crore assembly unit in Indonesia to manufacture a range of step-throughs. The new projects will surely provide any new kid on the block with enough scope to experience the rough and tumble of the auto world. Though Venu refuses to call all this succession planning, observers feel the process has started in earnest with the Laxmi8217;s induction. No wonder she doesn8217;t look like she8217;s registering for any more management courses in a hurry.

Raw diet

Gautam Thapar8217;s BILT is now weighing various options to strengthen his raw material sourcing base. The tycoon predicts that raw material prices are likely to firm up in the coming days, as the medium-term industry growth rate is pegged at a more than healthy 6-7 per cent. Gautam, paper industry watchers believe, is looking at both the option of buying out pulp mills and raising plantations. Thapar is looking at quality pulp manufacturing assets to take over in countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. This eagerness to expand the raw material base seems logical in view of the aggressive growth plans he has set out for himself. He is looking to invest Rs 1,200 crore in restructuring his existing capacities, which will reduce his cost in the process. The tycoon hopes to take his production capacity from 5 lakh tonnes to 8 lakh tonnes in the next three years. Thapar believes that the only way to overcome the raw material constraints in the country would be through overseas acquisitions. Though Gautam claims that with his overseas plans are aimed primarily at strengthening his raw material base, market watchers link his desire to venture aggressively abroad to the recent takeover of a Canadian pulp mill by Kumar Mangalam Birla. Observers also point out that restrictions on Indian corporates to raise their own plantations, seems to be driving the Indian paper tycoons overseas to acquire key raw material assets. But its high time the paper tigers got together and started getting government convinced about their genuine case for accessible raw materials.

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