N Srinivasan resigns as India Cements vice-chairman and MD, family also tenders resignation

N Srinivasan resigned as the vice-chairman & MD of India Cements on Wednesday, a day after the company became a subsidiary of UltraTech following the latter's acquisition. He also ceases to be the CEO, a position that he held as key managerial personnel (KMP). His daughter Rupa Gurunath and wife Chitra Srinivasan also tendered their resignations as wholetime director and non-independent director, respectively.

This has brought the curtains down for the 50 years long association of Srinivasan with India Cements, which was co-founded by his father TS Narayanaswami, a year before independence in 1946. Another co-founder was SNN Sankaralinga Iyer.

The India Cements board, which met on Wednesday, also recorded the resignation of independent directors of the company S Balasubramanian Adityan, Krishna Srivastava, Lakshmi Aparna Sreekumar and Sandhya Rajan. The new board of the company has been reconstituted. Seven additional directors including UltraTech Cement’s MD K C Jhanwar, chief manufacturing officer E R Raj Narayanan chief marketing officer Vivek Agrawal and director - HR, Aditya Birla Group, Ashok Ramchandran have been appointed in the capacity of non-independent and independent directors of the board.

"The erstwhile promoters and members of the promoter group, namely N Srinivasan, Chitra Srinivasan, Rupa Gurunath, EWS Finance & Investments, S K Asokh Baalaje, Financial Service Trust, Security Services Trust and Chennai Super Kings Cricket, who no longer hold any equity shares of the company, cease to be promoters/members of the promoter group of the company," India Cements, which a subsidiary of UltraTech, informed the stock exchange.

In their identical resignation letters, they thanked the employees and conveyed greetings for the new management. "Consequent to the divestment of my entire shareholdings in The India Cements, I tender my resignation with immediate effect. I sincerely thank the fellow directors, auditors, senior management team and the employees of the company for extending unstinted support during my tenure of office. I wish the new management, the company and its employees all the best in all its future endeavours," 80-year-old Srinivasan wrote in his resignation letter.

Joining India Cements soon after the demise of his father in 1968, he was ousted from the board in 1979 at the peak of his fight with co promoters. However, he made a comeback and took over as its managing director in Sept 1989. The company grew from two plants with a capacity of 1.3 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) in 1989 to 10 cement plants spread across Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan with a capacity of 15.5 MTPA. It also saw a five-fold jump in turnover from Rs 1,033 crore in 2002-03 to a turnover of Rs 5,112 crore in FY24 under his leadership.