From turning around an ailing auto component firm in Germany to spearheading innovation solutions at auto parts maker Motherson Sumi, Laksh Vaaman Sehgal is fast stepping out of the shadow of his illustrious billionaire father
Few in the corporate world would have been initiated into a family business quite like Laksh Vaaman Sehgal was. Let’s call it baptism by fire.
It happened in June 2009. The top brass of Samvardhana Motherson Group (SMG) had gathered at the Noida headquarters for a strategy review meeting to discuss a massively ailing UK-based firm Visiocorp, which it had just acquired. (Visiocorp, which made rear-view mirrors for cars, was renamed Samvardhana Motherson Reflectec or SMR, after the acquisition was completed in March 2009.) The UK-based company’s losses were so sharp that they had pushed the flagship firm Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd (MSSL) into a loss for the June-end quarter.
Chairman and group co-founder Vivek Chaand Sehgal suddenly pointed to his son Laksh Vaaman, then just 26, and said: “You will be the new CEO of the [ailing] company.”
“When he pointed towards me, I actually looked back to see if someone was standing behind me,” Laksh recalls while speaking to Forbes India, after the FY17 financial results of MSSL were announced in May 2017. (The company has shown a growth am of 15 percent over the previous year to notch consolidated revenues of ₹41,985 crore, with profit of ₹1,554 crore, up by 20 percent from FY16.)
This announcement, made without Laksh’s knowledge, was his father’s way of initiating his son into the business. But Laksh was apprehensive about leading a firm, let alone with the charge of having to pull it out of the sick bay. The total capital invested in SMR at the time of acquisition was €30 million; MSSL held a 51 percent stake in SMR while a group firm, Samvardhana Motherson Finance Limited, held the balance.
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