 "Kasturi & Sons announces Voluntary Retirement Scheme")
Kasturi & Sons Ltd (KSL), publisher of The Hindu and group publications, today announced a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for its employees. The company is announcing a VRS for its employees first time in its 136-year history.
The scheme is part of an ongoing organisational restructuring and efficiency enhancement programme focused on turning around the performance of the company.
The scheme is open to all employees above 40 years of age and with over 10 years of service and has been designed consistent with KSL’s long tradition of employee-centricity.
“Employees opting to apply to the scheme will receive a generous compensation package – possibly the most generous of recently announced schemes in industry – in addition to normal retirement benefits such as provident fund, gratuity, superannuation, encashment of unavailed leave, unclaimed leave travel allowance and any eligible performance-linked incentives,” said KSL.
The scheme is part of an ongoing organisational restructuring and efficiency enhancement programme focused on turning around the performance of the company.
The scheme is open to all employees above 40 years of age and with over 10 years of service and has been designed consistent with KSL’s long tradition of employee-centricity.
“Employees opting to apply to the scheme will receive a generous compensation package – possibly the most generous of recently announced schemes in industry – in addition to normal retirement benefits such as provident fund, gratuity, superannuation, encashment of unavailed leave, unclaimed leave travel allowance and any eligible performance-linked incentives,” said KSL.
“We are committed to ensuring that our transformation is led by our people initiatives. To that end, we are rolling out a voluntary retirement scheme to support our employees desiring to opt for the scheme with a compelling retirement corpus. This initiative is consistent with our commitment to ensuring a performance-oriented culture within KSL,” the statement said.
Drop in profit due to implementation of Wage Board recommendation?
In 2013-14, KSL reported around Rs 1,000 crore revenue and loss was to the tune of around Rs 64 crore. Sources said in 2014-15 also KSL is expected to report loss and they attribute the drop in profit due to the implementation of the wage board recommendations as per the direction of the Apex Court.
Insiders says, KSL wage board implementation would cost around Rs 40 crore every year. Other factor is launch of Tamil Daily in September 2013.
Drop in profit due to implementation of Wage Board recommendation?
In 2013-14, KSL reported around Rs 1,000 crore revenue and loss was to the tune of around Rs 64 crore. Sources said in 2014-15 also KSL is expected to report loss and they attribute the drop in profit due to the implementation of the wage board recommendations as per the direction of the Apex Court.
Insiders says, KSL wage board implementation would cost around Rs 40 crore every year. Other factor is launch of Tamil Daily in September 2013.
It may be noted, the year 2008 was the best for KSL, when it reported a profit of around Rs 230 crore and it started feeling the heat of competition and revenue. “Inability to increase advertisement rate due to competition and general market sentiment are the two major reasons,” was attributed as the reasons by the sources.
Kasturi and Sons Limited (KSL) publishes The Hindu and group newspapers including The Hindu Business Line, Hindu Tamil and magazines including Frontline and Sportstar. The Hindu is an English-language Indian daily newspaper. Headquartered at Chennai, The Hindu was published weekly when it was launched in 1878, and started publishing daily in 1889.