Birla clan patriarch B K Birla has fine-tuned the succession plan for Kesoram Industries, the flagship company of his Rs 13,000 crore group, with daughter Manjushree Khaitan tipped to take over as vice-chairman and grandson Kumar Mangalam Birla as chairman after him.
"Since Kumar Mangalam Birla is not based in Kolkata, the day-to-day affairs of Kesoram will be looked into by Manjushree under Kumar's guidance," Birla told reporters on the sidelines of Kesoram's AGM here today.
"Kumar will be the chairman and she the vice-chairman of the company," he said.
In the previous scheme of things, no specific role had been delineated for Manjushree in the Rs 5,000 crore Kesoram Industries, except that she was assigned to take the reins of Manjushree Plantations.
Birla, 90, said, "Manjushree is my daughter while Kumar is my grandson. I have lost my son, Aditya. But in business, Kumar is better than me and will guide her."
To a query, Birla said that he had been asking Kumar for long to join the Kesoram board. "He smiles and says that he will not do that till I am alive," Birla said.
Besides Kesoram, Kumar (Aditya's son) will also get the reins of B K Birla group firms Century Textiles and Century Enka.
His other daughter, Jayshree Mohta, was already in charge of Jayshree Tea & Industries.
On his other two group firms, Mangalam Cement and Mangalam Timber, Birla said that he was in favour of merging the two outfits.
He said that while Mangalam Cement was making good profits, Mangalam Timber was in the red.
"I want to merge the two firms, but others are not willing," he said.
Birla said that he was willing to talk to the directors of profit-making Kesoram who were not in favour of the merger.
According to the succession scheme of these two companies, Manjushree's daughter, Vidula Jalan, along with her husband, were tipped to take over the reins.
Birla said while his shareholding in four of the six group firms was 50 per cent, he held 30 per cent in the other two. "I want to raise it to a safe level of 50 per cent," he said.
These two firms were Mangalam Cement and Mangalam Timber.
Manjushree, who was already on the Kesoram board, addressed the shareholders as well.
She said that the target was to touch the Rs 10,000 crore turnover mark from the present level of Rs 5,000 crore.
The company is primarily engaged in the manufacture of cement and tyres.
