Debu Bhattacharya moves on from Hindalco

In 1999, when a young Kumar Mangalam Birla was looking for a chief executive officer to head the Aditya Birla group’s metal company Hindalco he zeroed in on Debnarayan Bhattacharya - Debu to his friends — a rising star at Hindustan Lever. As Bhattacharya hangs up his boots this weekend, Birla must be satisfied with his choice.

From a single-location company with sales of ~ 1,759 crore and market value of ~3,470 crore in 1999, Hindalco is today a multinational with ~100,000 crore of sales and a market value of ~27,600 crore.

Bhattacharya, an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur and Presidency College, Kolkata, says it was not an easy decision. After the untimely demise of his father, Birla was building a team to take the group to the next level. “As it turned out, it was not a wrong decision at all (to join Birla),” Bhattacharya had said in an earlier interview.

The biggest gamble by Bhattacharya and Birla was the acquisition of a much bigger US-based aluminum can manufacturer Novelis for $6 billion in 2007, which propelled Hindalco into the big league of metal companies in the world. After the Novelis acquisition, Bhattacharya did not take his eye of the ball. Hindalco ramped up production in India with an investment of $6 billion to meet rising demand in the continent.

Group insiders say the DNA of Hindalco changed under Bhattacharya, from a laidback company to an aggressive global player looking out for opportunities across the world. Bhattacharya’s 17-year stint at Hindalco was not without controversy, however. In 2013, Hindalco, Bhattacharya and Birla were accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of being illegally allotted coal mines in Odisha by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The CBI was probing coal mine allocations on an order by the Supreme Court, which cancelled all allotments made over 20 years. Soon after the news broke out, Bhattacharya told this paper Hindalco had followed all the rules and had not broken the law. The matter is pending in court.

Bhattacharya, 68, will hand over the baton to Satish Pai, who will take over as next managing director of Hindalco on Monday. Bhattacharya will be vice-chairman of Hindalco, apart from taking on an advisory role at the group level.

The biggest gamble by Bhattacharya and Birla was the acquisition of a much bigger US-based aluminum can manufacturer Novelis for $6 billion in 2007