Swc Employees Body Seek Changes In Takeover Code
The All India Shaw Wallace Employees Federation has appealed to the Central government to change the company laws and rules governing management takeovers by acquiring foreign holdings of Indian companies. It has also sought an effective role of FI shareholding in the company board to prevent any change in the management.
The appeal comes in light of reports that Shaw Wallace chairman Manu Chabbria is trying to offload his foreign stakes of SWC to some foreign bidder.
After almost a years battle at the Company Law Board(CLB) and the Department of Company Affairs(DCA), the federation has sought to take the fight back to the management camp through a recently published booklet titled The inveterate sinner.
The booklet comes as a rebuttal to a similar brochure - How to destroy an institution .. federation style, which highlighted the management perception of the long standing dispute ailing the liquor major.
The strongly worded 16 page booklet seeks to clarify the federations position vis-a-vis the questions raised by the company management and chairman Manu Chhabria.
Responding to the accusation that the federation is acting at the behest of Kishore Chhabria, the federation questioned as to why Kishore Chhabria would instigate it to file the petition with the CLB when the petition contained allegations of mismanagement during the period when Kishore was the managing director of SWC.
Besides, Kishore Chhabria is also aware of the federations memorandum to the then minister in charge of company affairs demanding enquiry\investigation of his usurping companys assets worth over Rs 100 crore as well as his act of hijacking 16 satellite companies of the Shaw Wallace group, the booklet said.
Manu Chhabria has publicly declared that Shaw Wallace will confine itself to areas of its core competency only - that is in electronics, liquor and beer.
Other traditional business will be divested from Shaw Wallce.
Despite his claims of personal competency in electronics, the electronic division is on the verge of winding up, and the same is the fate of Orson and Nihon, the booklet added.
Hence, what will be the fate of hundreds of employees if the consumer products division, gelatine and agro chemicals are disinvested on the plea of concentrating in areas of core competency and urgency of debt repayment? the federation booklet queried.