Succession issue may come up for discussion at ITC board meet today

The board of tobacco-to-hotels major, ITC, will meet for the first time since the demise of its chairman and non-executive director, Y C Deveshwar, on Monday. The agenda before the board, circulated much ahead of Deveshwar’s demise on Saturday, was to approve the audited financial results for the quarter and financial year and recommendation of dividend. However, it was most likely that the issue of succession would come up for discussion at the meeting.

ITC had split the role of executive chairman between chairman and chief executive officer in 2017.  Deveshwar had slipped into a non-executive role from executive chairman and Sanjiv Puri became the chief executive officer (CEO). At the request of the nomination and compensation committee and the board, for an orderly transition, Deveshwar had agreed to continue as chairman in a non-executive capacity and also play the role of mentor to the executive management.

In 2018, Puri was elevated to managing director. Sources said Puri who been given full executive role, could be considered for chairman and managing director. Even though Deveshwar had moved away from handling day-to-day affairs of the company, he had set an ambitious target for the management to grow the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) business to Rs 100,000 crore by 2030. 

However, industry observers pointed out that the FMCG sector was facing a challenging time with one of its worst slowdown, though the market expected a revival after the elections.