SAURABH AGRAWAL TO TAKE CHARGE AS TATA SONS CFO

MUMBAI: Saurabh Agrawal, 48, head of corporate strategy at the Aditya Birla group, has been named group chief financial officer (CFO) of Tata Sons Ltd, the company said on Monday.

He will join the holding company of the salt-to-software conglomerate from July, the statement said.

Agrawal, who has been with the Aditya Birla group since April 2016, will bring to the $103billion group the experience of having steered the biggest merger and acquisition transaction in the country—the merger of Idea Cellular Ltd with Vodafone Group Plc. He has also been instrumental in pushing through UltraTech Cement Ltd’s acquisition of Jaiprakash Associate Ltd’s cement assets and also the restructuring of Grasim Ltd and Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd.

Experts said the appointment of someone with his background and experience will help the group plan capital allocation better. “Getting adequate returns from the investments made in group firms has been one of the biggest worries for Tata Sons. Someone with a corporate strategy background will help and will be able to drive the much needed financial discipline,” said Kavil Ramachandran, executive director, Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at the Indian School of Business.

Agrawal is the second investment banker to join group Chairman N Chandrasekaran’s team after Ankur Verma from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Others see the hiring of dealmakers as a sign that the group’s focus on strategic divestments and restructuring will continue.