The LM Thapar group company Crompton Greaves has decided to exit from two subsidiaries _ CG-Fax Email and Radiant _ as well as a joint venture company CG-Elsag-Bailey. It has also appointed ABN Amro to scout for a buyer for its 40 per cent stake in Skycell Communications, the company's joint venture in the field of telecom.
At the company's annual general meeting yesterday, K K Nohria, chairman and managing director of Crompton Greaves, said that the company has initiated talks with Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) to sell its equity in CG-Elsag-Bailey. Crompton Greaves holds 49 per cent equity in this joint venture company which is into industrial automation.
Crompton Greaves (CG) is also looking for some venture capitalist to pick up stake in CorEl Microsystems, a joint venture between CG and an NRI industrialist. It also has plans for an initial public offering in 18 months to two years. The company has been valued at $28 million.
More From This Section
The company is divesting from its subsidiaries as part of its overall restructuring plan. Crompton Greaves expects Rs 15 crore following the sale of CG-Fax Email.
Meanwhile, Crompton Greaves is creating three corporate entities _ Power Groups and Industrial Systems, Consumer Products, and Digital (Telecommunication & Networking).
"Crompton Greaves has decided to focus its business energies by creating three specific identities for varying degrees of involvement. This involves a demerger and a restructuring process, which will keep the most logical partnership enterprises together, while giving others the freedom to grow in their own direction and at their own chosen speeds," according to the company's press release.
The three companies will come into effect from April 1, 2000 and will be listed on bourses. Nohria said that the company will be entirely professionally managed and will have family members at the executive level.