Eveready gets a new joint managing director in Suvomoy Saha

The move comes more than a year after the Burman family - promoters of Dabur India - became the largest shareholder in Eveready with a stake of 19.84%

The country’s largest dry cell battery maker, Eveready Industries India, announced on Tuesday that it had appointed Suvomoy Saha as joint managing director, for “re-orientation” of processes in the post pandemic world and “new growth avenues”.

The move comes more than a year after the Burman family – promoters of Dabur India – became the largest shareholder in Eveready at around 19.84 per cent. The Khaitan family – promoters of Eveready – are at 4.77 per cent and Amritanshu Khaitan, is the managing director of the company.

“To increase professional depth of the management, the board has brought in Suvomoy Saha, who we believe, will be able to guide the company in its next phase of growth,” said Amritanshu Khaitan.

Saha was a non-executive director prior to his appointment as joint managing director, which is effective August 10. From March 2005 to July 2019, he was a whole time director of Eveready.

The post of joint managing director is new for Eveready and the move is being seen as a step towards professionalizing the management.

In June, Mohit Burman, vice chairman of Dabur India, had told Business Standard that “all businesses should be run professionally” in response to a question on whether Eveready should be run by a CEO.

Asked whether the appointment of a joint managing director was in keeping with this philosophy, Khaitan said, Burmans are financial investors in the company and we value their investment.”

The focus for Eveready, he said, was to increase profitability and growth.

Eveready posted a 20.57 per cent in net profit to Rs 30.12 crore on a consolidated basis in the quarter ended June 30, 2021. It was at Rs 24.98 crore in the year-ago period. The quarterly results were announced on Monday.

Revenues from operations stood at Rs 282.13 crore, an increase of seven per cent from the same period last year.

Khaitan said, “Post-second wave, we have seen a strong demand in batteries and flashlights. Battery margins in the June quarter were at an all-time high of 27 per cent.”

Khaitan is expecting the lighting segment to see more growth in the coming quarter as the company has brought in a senior resource in the lighting and appliances business.

“The joint venture with the Wings group is also getting established,” he said.

Eveready formed a joint venture with Indonesia-based Universal Wellbeing, part of the Wings group in 2018 for FMCG. A detergent, SoKlin, was piloted in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, and now, more markets are being identified.