The Abuse of the Inland Letter

The blue inland letter evokes warm feelings.  Those who lived in hostels would know personal letters from family and friends would usually come in those inland letters.

Private. Economical. Large enough to convey the message.

The very same virtues of the Inland Letter seen by middle-class Indian families have been discovered by the corporate India now. What started off last year as a one-off case has become the norm this year. Premium notices from Insurance companies, Dividend information, IPO allotment information, Notices for AGM to shareholders etc which earlier used to come in envelopes are now being sent in Inland Letter cards.

The Blue Inland letter instead of evoking warm feelings, now evoke feelings of disgust, reserved for junk mail.

With companies in cost-cutting mode, every rupee saved helps. Inland letter postage is Rs 2.50 as against Rs 5.00 postage for an envelope. In addition, there are savings on stationery.

The cost of delivering a letter from one-point to another in India is the same, whether it is an Inland letter or an envelope. Government through India Post subsidizes the Inland Letter postage.

When Television competitions were abusing the low cost of post-cards, the postal department came up with a separate category of postcards called competition post-cards, which was priced much higher than the ordinary post card.

As the government subsidizes the postage on the Inland Letter, the government should check this abuse and come up with a separate category of Inland Letter for Business use in a different color.

The Blue Inland Letter should get back to its original use for personal mails only.

- G. Mohan

Share Premium: An Ingenious Political Graft

One ingenious method for raising money that has come to light in Andhra Pradesh is using share premium account. It is well known that the late CM’s son has business interests in the media sector. The media ventures are already operational and hence visible.  Fewer people are aware of newly floated  cement and steel companies  which are yet to be operational.

The media, steel and cement companies issued shares to the promoters, namely the family, at par. Then the same companies sold at huge premiums often 100-500x times the share value to other investors. On the strength of these investments the media business was valued at Rs 3500 crore in 2008.These investors were large real estate, construction and other AP based firms. These investors perhaps, invested large amounts of money and gave such valuations to shell companies or yet-to-be executed projects with the hope or explicit knowledge that the returns for the investment will come not from the projects per se but through other considerations. The considerations could be anything like concessional land, government contracts, tax concessions etc, which only a person in power can give.

There is nothing intrinsically unethical about issuing shares at a premium. Share valuations have an element of subjectivity. Many angel investors back greenhorn entrepreneurs, based on instinct. It is just incidental that the entrepreneur here had a very powerful father. Now, if the returns do not come through, they will be written off as bad investments in their books. If these investments have been made by public limited companies, as indeed many are, then it is the minority shareholder who loses.

-       G. Mohan

SRK and the Pursuit of Cheap Publicity

The mass media In India are crying hoarse that India’s national icon, Shahrukh Khan (SRK) has been humiliated by the US immigration authorities. SRK was subjected to two hours of checking at the Newark airport, apparently because his surname is Khan.

A look at the headlines in two prominent newspapers on 16^th August : The Times of India carries on the first page “Name’s Khan : SRK grilled at US airport”. Deccan Chronicle carries the headline ” SRK detained for being a  Khan.” One should not be surprised at all that these headlines are inspired by the upcoming movie of SRK, My name is Khan, directed by Karan Johar.

SRK and Karan Johar are using what could be brushed aside as a routine check to bring attention to the fact that SRK is being grilled because his name is Khan. A two hour detention of a largely out-of-work actor who has not had a single release in 2009, should not be national headline news any way.

This is free publicity for the upcoming movie – . My Name is Khan.  The media is playing into the hands willingly or unwillingly into the hands of SRK and KJo who are both very adept at managing the media and journalists.

The Indian mass media is either gullible or they have been co-opted. Worse, it could be both. Do we deserve such media? Should we not punish such publications for taking us to be a nation of suckers by taking our business elsewhere?

-       G. Mohan

Speaking Tree or Venality : A Disgrace Called The Times of India

Excerpts from The Times of India’s last Saturday (22^nd August) edition’s    Speaking Tree follows:

 

“When Kaikeyi approached Dashratha for the grant of her boons, he was devastated and broken. How could he send his beloved Rama to exile? How could he deny him, the righteous one, the throne? How could he nominate Bharata as his successor?

But, equally, could he afford to break his word, not keep his promise? Dashratha knew the answer but he had his moment of doubt.

Rama had none.

When the news of his terrible fate was broken to him – by Kaikeyi, not Dashratha, who was too distraught to talk, one might remember – he was the very picture of tranquillity.

If father had given his word, could Rama ever think of going back on it! His was to obey, not question, follow, not doubt, surrender, not seek. Raghukula Riti Sadaa Chali Aai, Praan Jaahun Paru Bachanu Na Jaai . (Ayodhya Kanda). Could there be a higher example of trust?

Lord Rama knew in his heart, as a billion Indians do, that trust is not about taking short-cuts, it is not about taking the easy way out. Trust is all or it is nothing. Make a sacrifice if necessary; but do what is right rather than what is convenient.

Trust is also my father’s proudest legacy to all of us, our most precious inheritance.

Sadly, a legacy might not be forever. More than what you get, it is what you make of it. Cherish it, and it grows. Neglect it and it wilts. Like a tender young sapling, it demands constant care and concern.

Looking back over the last few years, I am deeply and painfully aware of how easy it is to lose touch with one’s values. How easy it is to let one’s samskaras turn into empty words without meaning or intent.

How easy it is to let the obsession with self – ‘I, me, mine’ – vitiate even the purest, most selfless of relationships – the bond between a child and his mother.

This takes us beyond trust to a realm yet higher; a realm so sacred, so exalted that it is likened, in our scriptures, to divinity itself. There is no higher duty, purpose or end in life, say our epics, than an unconditional surrender to a mother’s love, a supreme respect for her will, a devotion to her well-being.

“Verily,” say the Vedas, “the mother is God”. “Matrudevo bhava!” proclaims the Taittriya Upanishad. “Honour thy mother. Look upon her as God.”

Can one worship God without total trust? Can one show her reverence without bowing one’s head in absolute humility? Can one break a word spoken solemnly in her presence?

And if one does – in the mindless pursuit of power, ego or material riches – what has one gained and, more importantly, what has one really lost?”

 

Guess who is the writer? The holyman dishing out this discourse is not a religious preacher is none other than our Forbes 500 Tycoon Anil Ambani. The father under reference is Dhirubhai Ambani. By invoking the Ramayana, Anil Ambani is clearly hinting that Dhirubhai is like Dasaratha. He is like Rama, the wronged one. (Extending it his wife Tina - Sita, and J.P.Chalasani, his Hanuman, ha!ha!ha!).

 

Dhirubhai Ambani was undoubtedly a great entrepreneur. He was hardly, the paragon of virtues, he is made out to be, by his son, Anil. In his desperation to win the ongoing battle for gas with his brother Mukesh, he is assuming the role of Maryada Purushottam Rama. Even if wishes to assume such a position, why should a national paper like TOI lend him the sanctity by publishing the piece as a spiritual article under  Speaking Tree  - a column which in the past  had  featured  many genuine seekers of the metaphysical truth? Don’t tell me that the advertising revenue earned from ADAG companies has nothing to do with TOI provide some rented halo to Anil Ambani’s hypocrisy. Pray, what will remain of  the Speaking Tree brand after this despicable sellout! How low can TOI stoop!!

 

- G. Mohan.

 

P.S. – This is not the first time! TOI  had allowed  Anil Ambani to use the hallowed space of Speaking Tree  to score  some points against  Mukesh Ambani when the feud between the brothers became public five years ago.

Pulsating Price of Pulses

 

“Dal roti khao, prabhu ke gun gao!”- is an old Kishore Kumar song of the ‘70s. This used to be the earthy philosophy of “Simple living, high thinking” of the middle-class India. Dal or pulses are an important constituent of the Indian diet whether in the South or North, rich or poor.

 

The prices of pulses are rising so fast that it is soon going to be out of reach of the Indian middle class. Tur Dal, also known as Arhar Dal, prices have risen from Rs 65 per kg in June’09 to Rs 96 in July (Hyderabad retail prices). There is news item in the papers that this is soon going to reach Rs 120 per kg in August. The prices of other pulses have also risen steeply, although the extent of increase is the highest in Tur.

 

The newspapers mention it is a combination of poor crop and inability of the government to import pulses from Africa which has led to this steep increase. Hoarding by the intermediaries also might be contributing to the hike in prices.

 

In India where governments have fallen on onion price increases, it is remarkable that the price increase of food items, particularly pulses, is hardly on the political agenda today. The main opposition party, BJP is staging walk-outs in the Parliament on Indo-Pak declaration issues. The main rabble rouser inside the government, champion of the ‘common peepul’ Mamata Banerjee is throwing tantrums on the land acquisition bill. Left is too busy fighting itsown quarrels.

 

The UPA came to power riding in the name of policies for the Aam Aadmi. To my mind,  the Aam Aadmi, more than being the target of their policies,  has become a mascot for catching votes. The UPA government has been particularly lucky that many of the Aam-Aadmi’s problems like inflation have surfaced only after the elections. The crude oil price increase and now the monsoon failure leading to inflation and crisis in agriculture have all happened after the elections. The Union Minister of Cricket, who incidentally also looks after agriculture as an additional responsibility has little interest in addressing these problems. Elections in Maharashtra must be on his mind.    

 

The Prime Minister who sees India through the files that come to him is still quite pleased that inflation is under check because the WPI for the last week is -1.2 %.

 

Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi lives Ram Bharose! He is looking at the Rain God with hope, so that he can put some dal on his child’s plate. 

 

-          G. Mohan

Aditya Puri: A Good Banker, a Not-so-good Boss

 

Little is known about HDFC Bank and the people behind it. It is a highly successful and profitable new generation bank in the private sector. It came alongside ICICI Bank and at several points in time, the market capitalization of HDFC Bank has been higher than that of ICICI Bank and SBI.

 

Since inception Aditya Puri has been the MD of HDFC Bank and has been steering the bank, through times, good and bad, successfully. The bank has been growing 30% year-on-year for the last 15 years and has one of the lowest NPAs in the business. In spite of the absence of home loans ( as it is the preserve of its promoter HDFC Ltd) , the bank has a strong retail business. HDFC Bank and Aditya Puri have got legions of awards for this success.

 

The media is yet to put up the spotlight on  Aditya Puri as a person and his managerial style. Today’s Business Standard carries an interesting piece on him titled ‘ A Lifelong Pursuit of Leisure’ Given below are excerpts from interview, which gives an insight into the persona and the managerial style of Aditya Puri:

 

“The man, who has just been voted India’s best CEO in Finance Asia magazine’s annual poll of investors and analysts, says his management mantra has been inspired by a cartoon he saw in one foreign newspaper. One half of the cartoon showed the boss neck-deep in work while others outside were having a whale of a time. The other half showed the boss taking a nap while others were all glued to their computers.

 

“I am sure you know which half of the cartoon is my favourite,” the HDFC Bank MD and CEO says, ordering a lassi. Puri must be the only CEO in the world who doesn’t carry a mobile or laptop; leaves office at 5:30 pm sharp; doesn’t work on weekends, giving him enough time to grow exotic vegetables & fruits at his Lonavla farmhouse; takes at least one long annual leave; and skips networking dinners to pursue other interests such as listening to music and reading.

He has recently added one more must to his daily routine: Talking non-stop to his 10-month-old grandson whenever he is around. “Both of us understand each other’s language perfectly,” Puri says with a hearty laugh   

He may not carry his laptop or mobile, but he comes across as quite a hands-on man and a control freak.

 

Despite the distance he keeps from back-breaking work, Puri says he knows exactly what is happening at each of the bank’s 1,400-plus branches. “If there is an over-withdrawal of cash at some branch, the information reaches me within an hour — wherever I am. For that, you don’t need cell phones; you only need to put proper systems in place.”

Aditya Puri clearly values his leisure, but not necessarily that of his employees. I have heard from a cousin who used to work for HDFC Bank for several years in the accounts department. He used to have a 12 hour work schedule for large part of his year. Add to that 3 hours of commute in Mumbai and there was no life left at all. During accounts closing every quarter he would not come home for seven days at a stretch. He used to pack off his wife and kid to his in-laws’ house during accounts closing time. He was short of hands in his department and there was a lot of churn also, yet to manage costs, there were never enough people to do the work. If he would crib about this, he was clearly indicated by no less than Aditya Puri that if he was unable to cope, he had the option to leave. After his health got worse with all the stress, he decided to change his employer.

 

Aditya Puri has managed to strike a great work-life balance, but cares little for his people’s work-life balance. Because, if they also have a great work-life balance, then the company performance will suffer and Mr Puri cannot get those awards and rising stock prices. Mr Puri recently indicated in an interview, that he was not averse to getting another five-year term.

 

Contrast this with Jim Goodnight, the CEO of SAS Institute, an US based software company in the data mining and data warehousing business, revered all across the globe. Fast Company describes Mr. Goodnight’s highly successful management style as :

 

“Jim Goodnight is not a guy who notices management fads or worries much about outside criticism. He lives the way he wants his employees to live. He goes home around 5 p.m. (at which point SAS’s automated switchboard starts answering the phone, “Most of SAS Institute is closed at this time . . .”). He refrains from checking email when he’s away from the office.”

 

Both Mr. Puri and Mr. Goodnight value their leisure and understand work-life balance. Yet, the difference cannot be more striking when it comes to their policies for the employees.

 

Mr Puri’s arrogance also shows when he says “Besides, I have reached a stage in life where I don’t have to network any longer; people need to network with me.” Probably here, he is taking a dig at his boss Deepak Parekh who is well-known for his networking skills. I would always have more respect for a person like Deepak Parekh, who uses his network and knowledge to contribute to India (UTI, Satyam etc)  rather than an Aditya Puri, who values his leisure so much and yet wants to hold on to the top job, to enjoy the perks and privileges that come with it.

 

Would you work for a workaholic boss, who does not understand work-life balance and expects his employees to emulate him or would you work for a manager like Aditya Puri who manages his own work-life balance so beautifully, but cares two -hoots for his people’s work-life balance? Both are bad choices, but at least the former boss cannot be accused of double standards.

 

Now tell  me, would you give your best for a boss like Mr. Goodnight or Mr. Puri?

 

-   G. Mohan

TOI is too petty!

 The Times of India (TOI), Hyderabad edition carried the headline on the first page “Team Hyderabad are the Nizams of IPL.” The web-edition of TOI carries the headline “Hyderabad turn IPL upside down with title win .” It is common knowledge, that the team which has won the IPL trophy in 2009 is Deccan Chargers. Yet, TOI never used the word Deccan Chargers anywhere in the news or in the headlines, including the IPL table which it used to publish daily. It is true that Deccan Chargers is Team Hyderabad, just the same Royal Challengers Bangalore is Team Bangalore. Yet, TOI used Royal Challengers Bangalore, but never Deccan Chargers. I presume that TOI decided not to use the correct name, Deccan Chargers for the simple reason that Deccan Chargers is owned by Deccan Chronicle, a rival newspaper of TOI. The short name for Deccan Chargers will be DC, which is the acronym for Deccan Chronicle. In Hyderabad, most recognise the abbreviation DC as Deccan Chronicle. By using the phrase Team Hyderabad instead of DC, TOI did not wish to give any mileage to Deccan Chronicle, even in the news.

Now to me this is pettiness. If TOI really did not wish to cover DC it could have given limited coverage to IPL. It did not. It knew that the young readership of TOI prefers IPL over elections, yet it had to stoop to such levels so as to not give any coverage to a competitor, even obliquely.

- G. Mohan

Brand Hyderabad in Tatters

 

For most, after the breakout of the Satyam scandal, perceptions about Brand Hyderabad have caught up with the reality. I must say though I fear that the city’s image has taken more beating than it was due.

 

 

Capital market magazine has brought out a cover story titled “Guilt by association” on the Hyderabad stocks post-Satyam scandal. Some of the caustic remarks made there are reproduced below:

 

 

• Analysts have always treated Hyderabad-based companies with caution as these companies have a big mouth when it comes to guiding revenues and net profit. This caution has been proved right by the Satyam scam

 

• Hyderabad based companies are generally a one-man organization with the Managing Director and CEO running the show

 

• The second aspect of concern is the shareholding pattern. These companies have a high foreign holding. There are companies where foreign holding is higher than promoter holding. Recently, Chandra Babu Naidu, former Chief Minister of AP, hinted of money laundering and bogus funding.

The poor perception of Hyderabad has reached such levels, that even BusinessWeek carried a large story titled “Satyam scandal takes toll on Hyderabad“. Excerpts from the article are presented below:

 

 

 

 

“It has been a dramatic fall from grace for Hyderabad, the southern Indian city that had emerged as a viable competitor to Bangalore as the public face of the new India. Giants such as Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, and Google have opened offices there. But Satyam was also among the city’s leading lights, and Hyderabad today is rife with tales of murky land dealings, companies that cook their books, and owners who siphon off cash.

 

 

Now investors are talking about a “Hyderabad discount” for companies based there.

 

 

Satyam’s fall seemed to validate those latent fears. Since Jan. 7 stock prices for the top 50 listed companies from Hyderabad, mostly managed by their founders, have fallen by an average of 23 percent [not including Satyam's near-total collapse], vs. an 11 percent fall for the Bombay Stock Exchange’s benchmark index.

 

 

Hyderabad’s dodgy reputation extends to its professional class. Accounting firm KPMG runs a busy practice in India that helps companies spot fake degrees and exaggerations of job experience. While Hyderabad isn’t alone in this sort of activity, it’s the embellished-resume capital of India, says Garuav Taneja, who runs the KPMG operation.

 

 

Some in Andhra Pradesh are trying to change the system. EAS Sarma, a former top economist in the Finance Ministry in New Delhi, now lives near Hyderabad. He’s battling to reverse Satyam’s December purchase of 50 acres of state property along an endangered coastline. Satyam bought the land for what Sarma says was just 10 percent of its market value, resulting in a loss of at least $52 million for the state. He is also demanding details of property sales to 14 Hyderabad companies that he says are closely connected to the state government. “It’s crony capitalism,” Sarma says. “Giving away cheap land is not promoting industrialization; creating a corruption-free environment and simplified procedures is.”

 

 

There is a lot of pressure on Hyderabad companies to prove they are not like Satyam,”  says Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a member of Parliament and president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry.”

 

 

 

One can, of course, argue  that several  criticisms leveled against Hyderabad are applicable to India at large.

 

 Now that the damage has been done and the reputation has been tarnished, let us contemplate as to how Brand Hyderabad can be repaired. This is essential for the growth of the city.

 

 

 

Here are a few suggestions to the industrialists and businessmen of Hyderabad.

• Move from one-man shows to professional teams : The publicly listed companies are seen as one-man shows. The top-team usually consists of family members or members belonging to the same caste or village. Bringing in professionals from other parts of the country or even abroad and giving them important roles will dispel this notion to an extent.

 

• Move from convenient CAs to competent CAs : The analysts and the fund managers do not believe the accounts presented by the Hyderabad companies, particularly after a blue-chip company like Satyam confessed cooking books for several years. The companies in Hyderabad have to clean up their books once for all. Change their CFOs, wherever possible and also change their statutory auditors. Even if the current auditors are good enough, there is a need to change to improve the perceptions. When Reliance was faced with several charges related to duplicate shares etc, it changed its auditors and brought in an international name to restore faith.

 

• Under-promise and over-deliver : One of the charges against the Hyderabad entrepreneurs is their big mouth. It is time these companies learned from companies like Infosys who always under-promise and over-deliver. In the long run such companies are respected more and get superior valuations. It is time the Hyderabadi businessmen realise that one-upmanship among each other is actually hurting the city’s interests and thereby their own.

 

• From ostentatious to simple living : The Hyderabadi tendency to flaunt wealth and success has to be curbed.Even if the wealth has been earned and not stolen, the media and the public is viewing the ostentatious display of wealth suspiciously.  

 

• Distancing away from politicians: Hyderabadi businessmen are seen as too close to the politicians. Even if they perform social service and CSR activities, they are always viewed with jaundiced eyes. It is time they distance themselves from politicians. Better they could become citizen activists and fight for problems faced by the citizens against the government in power. This will improve the perceptions significantly, like what the Bangalore Agenda Task Force did to the industrialists of Bangalore. 

 

 

The Hyderabadis have to now go more often to Shirdi than to Tirupati. The popular belief in AP is you turn to Sai Baba of Shridi when you have a crisis and you turn to Lord Balaji of Tirupati to fulfil your dreams. It is crisis time at Hyderabad, so it is time for a trip to Shirdi.

 

 

Once the crisis is blown over, the Andhra spirit of enterprise will be back in action and then it will be time to call on Lord Balaji.

 

 

-  G. Mohan

Renaming of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group

In Prince Anwar Shah Road, Kolkata , you will see two very small electric shops both calling themselves Kundu Electric. If you see closely one signboard reads Kundu Electric (Old) and the other one Kundu Electric (Original). 

In Bhowanipur, Kolkata, where you will see several jewel shops with similar sounding names. You will find “Lakkhi Babu Ka Sone ki Dukaan’. Alongside that there is another jewel shop which says ” Asli Lakkhi Babu Ka Sone Ki Dukaan.” Yet another one says “Asli Lakkhi Babu Ka Asli Sone Ki Dukaan.”  All have one thing common, they all write “We have no branch.”

Perfect examples of how brothers fight to keep the original brand name built by their father. with each brother trying to claim to be the true inheritor of the father’s legacy.

A similar fight  though on a much grander scale was on among the Ambani brothers when the Reliance Group split. Both retained the Reliance name, built by their father .The original logo remained with the Mukesh Ambani Group. The Anil Ambani side had to rechristen itself as Reliance ADAG and also had to get a new logo. Until the split, the younger brother was always known as Anil Ambani. But in order to get some of the goodwill of his late father, he chose to use his full name Anil Dhirubhai Ambani.

As per the separation agreement, at some point of time Reliance ADAG may have to give up its use of the name Reliance. Given Anil’s penchant for dabbling in varieties of business and also to appropriate some of the father’s goodwill, he could rename his group as “Dhirubhai Ambani’s Asli Reliance”- in short “DALLIANCE”.

- G. Mohan

Profile of an Andhrapreneur

 

Business Outlook carried out a cover story on the several successful entrepreneurs who have emerged from Andhra Pradesh in recent times. These entrepreneurs from Andhra were aptly called Andhrapreneurs. These included the men behind GMR, GVK, IVRCL, LANCO, Nagarjuna Construction and Maytas.

 

 

Since the last week of December ever since the Satyam-Maytas fiasco and the arrest of K.S.Raju, came to fore, AP businessmen are in the news for all the wrong reasons. Hyderabad is acquiring a bad reputation, so much so, that on the day when B Ramalinga Raju made his confession, six of the Top 10 losers in the stock exchange were from Hyderabad.

 

 

There is a certain common thread which runs through when one looks at the strategies and success of these Andhrapreneurs. Most of these companies are floated by first generation entrepreneurs. They started small as construction contractors and cut their teeth in two major projects of AP, namely Nagarjunasagar Dam and Visakhapatnam Steel Project. From construction, they have graduated into bigger construction projects such as roads, irrigation and airports. Power sector is another sector where several of these companies are engaged in either as an operator or as a EPC contractor. From construction to real estate was a natural extension and most of these companies are engaged in real estate projects. And this is where, the fairy tale gets a twist.

 

The construction, infrastructure, power or real estate  industries have a strong link with the government. These Andhrapreneurs have all developed and benefitted from the strong political connections they have nurtured and built in order to further their business interests. They also could scale up fast by virtue of the easy money available through private quity and the IPO route. Showing a huge order book, land bank and accounts (dubious?) , they all catapulted their market valuations several times during the boom period from 2003 to 2007. In 2008 stockmarket crash, most of these companies were hit really hard.

 

 

To look at the profile and lifestyle of a typical Andhrapreneur, look no further than L.Madhusudhan Rao, the Chairman of  LANCO Group. He is the brother of L.Rajagopal, the Founder Chairman who is now a Congress MP from Vijayawada. He is an M.Tech from India followed by an MS from USA. Here are excerpts from an interview to Hindu Business Line in May 2008 :

 

 

Thanks to their boss’s penchant for fancy cars, at least 10 chief executives of the Hyderabad-based Lanco Group enjoy the luxury of driving Mercedes-Benz cars. As for the boss himself — L. Madhusudhana Rao, Chairman of the fast-growing Lanco Group — a Rolls-Royce Phantom is the latest jewel in his collection of fancy cars.

Formula 1 racing and the latest cars are a major draw, but cricket is a strict no-no, except for keeping abreast of the latest developments in the game, says Rao, 42, who steers the fortunes of the diversified infrastructure group with a turnover of over Rs 1,600 crore (FY 2007).

A film a day keeps a lot of tension away, could well describe Rao’s self-prescription, going by the appetite he has exhibited for the celluloid world. “Initially, I would watch about 250 films a year as a student of engineering. They were mostly Telugu and a few from Bollywood and Hollywood,” he says. His favourite stars are Krishna and NTR. Incidentally, his brother L. Sridhar is a film producer.

Family holidays are a must on his list and the family has visited some of the most exotic locales and resorts around the world. Terming himself a ‘family man’, he says, “Even when in Hyderabad and engaged in handling the tough challenges of running a large corporate, I reach office at 10 a.m. and manage to go back to the family by 7 p.m.”

In 1991, Lanco was born, and riding on the platform of economic reforms, the company’s turnover galloped from a mere Rs 3 crore in 1992 to a robust Rs 1,600 crore in just over 10 years. The mantle of leadership fell on Rao when Rajagopal took to full-time politics in 2002. The prime focus of the company was power at that time, he recalls.

“In 2012, when I complete a decade at the helm, I would like to see the Lanco Group (which aims to reach the Rs 3,000 crore mark in FY 2008) as a Rs 40,000-crore asset base company, which is among the top-three companies in power generation. The group will emerge from being a family-run company of the 1980s and 1990s into a professionally-run enterprise,” he says.

He says, “While most businesses in India are still run on the family model, we want to run our business very futuristically, though we also started on the traditional family model. We will put the family culture behind. People should forget Lanco as a family-run company.”

Having been groomed in the Lanco Group, which grew from transport service to contracts executed for large irrigation projects, with its big break coming with the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Rao feels the time is right for entrepreneurs to get into sectors ranging from retail to infrastructure. Funds are easy with many private equity and venture groups having entered the scene”, he says.

” What is required” , he adds, ” are good ideas, commitment and passion for entrepreneurs to turn into successful industrialists.”

Another important trait of the Andhrapreneurs is to tom-tom their company’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance. In LANCO’s web-site they mention :

A member of UN Global Compact, Lanco Infratech is recognised for its Good Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives led by the Lanco Foundation.

 

 

Professional qualifications, strong political connections, family ties, gigantic ambitions, weakness for fast life, passion for films, pretensions to professionalism, lip service to  both corporate governance and philanthropy – these are some the common attributes that seem to characterize an Andhrapreneur.

 

 

- G. Mohan