M.V. Subbiah hangs his boots

The Rs 5,000 crore Murugappa group announced that its former chairman and director on board of the Murugappa Corporate Board, M V Subbiah, had retired.

Subbiah was chairman of the group from 1996 to April 2001, when in a path breaking move, he handed over the chairmanship of the group to a non-family person, N S Raghavan.

Credited with bringing in corporate governance norms into a traditionally family controlled group, Subbiah was also responsible for creating the Murugappa Corporate Board with three external directors.

Subbiah, according to a release from the group, is retiring at 65 and will relinquish office from all the group statutory boards such as E I D Parry (India) Ltd, Parrys Confectionery Ltd, Parry Agro Industries and Coromandel Fertilisers Ltd.

Former HLL head honcho Sushim Datta is slated to take over chairmanship at E I D Parry, while family member M M Venkatachalam will be the chairman of Parry Agro Industries.

The E I D Parry board has been restructured and has inducted G Ramprasad, vice-president (Parryware), into the board as whole time director.

M M Murugappan and Anand Bhatia have also been co-opted as additional directors on the board of E I D Parry.

The retirement coincides with the High Courts of Madras and Andhra Pradesh according permission to the scheme of arrangement of de-merger of the E I D Parry's farm inputs division to Coromandel Fertilisers Ltd and the merger of Parry & Company Ltd and the Mofussil Warehouse and Trading Company Ltd (wholly owned subsidiaries of the company) with itself.