Too hot to handle

Venugopal Dhoot is in the midst of a grand re-launch of the ‘coolest one’ in a new avatar. In fact there was considerable speculat...

Venugopal Dhoot is in the midst of a grand re-launch of the ‘coolest one’ in a new avatar. In fact there was considerable speculation about Dhoot’s initiatives on the Kelvinator brand ever since he acquired it from Swiss electronics giant AB Electrolux. The tycoon insists he is not going to restrict the brand to just refrigerators as earlier. He hopes to extend it to air conditioners, microwave ovens and washing machines. While the launch of the ACs and microwaves may be completed by the end of this month, customers will have to wait till October for Dhoot’s washing machines. The tycoon aspires to make Kelvinator a Rs 300-crore brand in the first year of its relaunch. Not an ambitious target given that the brand still enjoys a fair bit of mind share in the country despite being withdrawn from the market. Dhoot has also decided to use the customer-comforting old famous tag line of Kelvinator — ‘The Coolest One’— for his refrigerators and ACs. While ACs and microwave ovens are going to be outsourced from third-party suppliers, refrigerators and washing machines are going to be manufactured at group factories only. Specialists are of course wondering if the ‘Grand re-entry design’ is going to work for the business tycoon-cum-Parliamentarian, given the cut-throat competition that the Koreans and Chinese brands ensure in this lucrative product space.

Eveready tycoon

Kolkata-based Deepak Khaitan never seems to be short of surprises for market watchers. He hit the headlines last year with his takeovers in the tea and battery industry. Even though his tea business is going through a resurgent phase with relaunch of its existing brands and addition of brand variants, he is also charting out plans to launch his newly-developed range of homecare products. For starters he has introduced a mosquito repellant coil branded ‘Eveready Poweron’ in the market and would soon launch a whole range of aerosol repellants, room freshners and liquid home cleaners. The tycoon has set himself a turnover target of Rs 2,000 crore within the next few years. Despite his zooming tea and batteries business, the target looks difficult to achieve. The option of a business like homecare products could be profitable when he is ready to look beyond batteries and tea. He has decided to outsource the mosquito coils from the Kolkata-based Manaksia Ltd, which is an expert in making mosquito repellent coils. The company already has the likes of Reckitt & Benckiser’s and Jyothy Laboratories as clientele. With such an expert and a brandname like Eveready, Khaitan appears to have a good future lined up. He is banking heavily on his strong network of 4,000 distributors to market his products and believes he is ready to take on competitors like Sara Lee, Reckitt & Benckiser and Hindustan Lever. Get ready folks for one more slugfest.

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Hamas under pressure to respond to Gaza peace plan as Trump says will give ‘three or four days’

Trump gives Hamas 3-4 days to accept Gaza peace plan, with a warning

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