Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Tycoon could not turn into a Goliath

BS Corporate Bureau

Manohar Rajaram Chhabria, takeover tycoon of the 1980s, is no more. But 15 years after he shot into the limelight with daring takeovers of the then liquor bluechip Shaw Wallace and then India's largest tyre company, Dunlop India, his dream of turning his group into one of India's largest still remains a pipedream.

The radio parts seller of Mumbai's Lamington Road, who made his fortune in the Middle East hawking electronics products for Sony, built his Indian empire through acquisitions.

By 1988, Chhabria's operations in India had a turnover exceeding Rs 11.09 billion with profits after tax of Rs 685 million. Manu was on a roll.

But after a bout of public mud-slinging when he parted ways with younger brother Kishore in the early 1990s, and a host of allegations of financial mismanagement at his companies - that led to probes by the Income-Tax and Enforcement Directorates - his empire clearly began to flounder.

Chhabria himself stayed away from India for over 5 years, overseeing his companies from Dubai by remote control. The result: at the end of fiscal 2000-01, Chhabria's empire in India (six major listed companies, Shaw Wallace & Company, Dunlop India, Falcon Tyres, Mather & Platt, Hindustan Dorr Oliver and Gordon Woodroffe) had a net sales of Rs 9.144 billion, with the group's aggregate losses at Rs 655.2 million.

However, a group executive put the turnover of his extended Indian empire, including his unlisted companies, at over Rs 25 billion.

Dunlop, which had a 35 per cent market share in the 1980s and by far the largest player then, is now closed with losses of Rs 890 million last year.

Shaw Wallace, which was giving UB's Vijay Mallya a run for his money then, trails the UB group by a long way now and is still in the red.

Chhabria's international operations has, however, not fared as badly. Jumbo Electronics in 1988 had a turnover of around $1 billion (Rs 1.55 billion at the prevailing exchange rate), while the trading operations in the UK, the US, Oman, Japan, etc, amassed another Rs 4.71 billion.

The Jumbo group today has a turnover of $1.5 billion, with his operations spreading over more 50 countries.

His distributorship business now includes big names like Compaq, IBM, Packard Bell, Nokia, Ericcson, Siemens, apart from Sony and Aiwa.

Powered by

ALSO READ:
The show must go on, Chhabria had said
A case of dreams gone sour
Industrialist Manu Chhabria dead
Manu Chhabria cremated
The Rediff Budget Special
The Rediff-Business Standard Special
Money

Tell us what you think of this report