Will ex-Maruti Suzuki MD Jagdish Khattar's Carnation Auto bloom again?

Former Maruti managing director Jagdish Khattar's first entrepreneurial venture is under corporate insolvency proceedings. A look at what went wrong

Jagdish Khattar retired from the position of managing director at country’s largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki in October 2007. At age 65, few would venture into setting up a new business at that age. However, a year later Khattar launched an entrepreneurial venture, Carnation Auto, a multi-brand automobile service network also dealing in used car business.

Almost a decade later, Khattar’s venture struggles to find a profitable road.  Carnation was started as a company-owned company-operated network. Upon reaching a number of 24 such outlets, spanning Amritsar in Punjab to Cochin in Kerala, the company realised that that was not the