Sanjiv Puri takes over as new ITC chief
NEWDELHI: ITC Ltd, India’s largest cigarette maker, Monday named managing director Sanjiv Puri, 56, as its chairman. He will take over the legacy of YC Deveshwar, the company’s longest serving chairman who died on May 11.
Puri was set to take over the role by 2021-22, and was being mentored by Deveshwar for the post of the chairman.
Deveshwar helped ITC diversify from a cigarettes company to one with business interests in retail, packaged foods, paper, and packaging. He also grew its revenue ten-fold to ₹52,036 crore during the two decades that he was at the helm of the company.
The task is now cut out for Puri, an old ITC hand, and an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Wharton School.
An email sent to an ITC spokesperson did not elicit a response.
Analysts and industry observers who track the company say ITC has done well in diversifying its portfolio and little will change with Puri at the helm.
“I don’t think anything will change for ITC given the scale they have created, the cash they have generated and given that they are open for acquisitions as well. I see no problem for them unless things get worse on the cigarettes front and, of course, cash flows get affected,” said an analyst with a Mumbai-based brokerage firm on the condition of anonymity.
“They have a longer term view for the consumer business, they want to go for scale, which is great for long term and not for the nearterm business and shareholders.”
“It was expected that this will happen (that Puri will lead the organization),” said Naveen Trivedi, an analyst at HDFC Securities. Trivedi added that ITC is on track to grow its non-cigarette consumer goods business further. On Monday, the company also announced its fiscal-fourth quarter earnings. Profit rose 19% to ₹3,481 crore from a year earlier. Revenue rose 13% to ₹11,992 crore.