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At his last AGM, Naik lays roadmap for L&T's future

On July 1, Naik passed on the baton to S N Subrahmanyan as chief executive officer and managing director

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A M Naik, executive chairman, L&T, flanked by S N Subhramanyam, MD and CEO, R Shankar Raman, CFO, gestures at the firm’s AGM in Mumbai on Tuesday
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It was a nostalgic affair rather than the usual business talk at the Larsen & Toubro annual general meeting on Tuesday.

After all, the meeting was the last for A M Naik, a towering figure in India Inc, as chairman. Naik retires on September 30.

Shareholder after shareholder showered praises and remembered the contribution of Naik who joined the company 52 years back as a junior engineer and rose through ranks to steer the company as chairman.

Naik was his usual self, as he has been in the earlier AGMs, making witty comments and indulging the speakers who appreciated his role in building fortunes for the company and them.

"I am not going anywhere. I will be attending AGM for another three years," he quipped.

The difference will be that his attendance in future will be as non-executive chairman.

On July 1, Naik passed on the baton to S N Subrahmanyan as chief executive officer and managing director.

Born in 1942 at Gujarat's Bilimoria town about 250 km away from Mumbai, Naik completed higher education at Vallabh Vidyanagar, an education hub of Gujarat.

"It was in 1965 that I walked through the gates of Larsen & Toubro's Powai complex, with an application in my hand and a dream in my heart," Naik said in his speech at the AGM.

Interacting with mediapersons after the AGM, Naik said that he doesn't want to be involved in day-to-day functioning of the organisation.

After the many years at the helm, he has the path laid out for the engineering behemoth.

"L&T must redefine its core. Every few years, there's new technology, new opportunity in the market that emerges. So, we had started our first five-year plan way back in 2000. Now, we are on fourth strategic plan. We are seeing a lot of opportunities in other areas like Smart Cities, Smart World, new technologies in infotech, quite a new technologies in application and engineering and defence.

He said the company wanted to focus on these areas.

"As done historically, the company has stayed ahead in technological sphere. Consequently, there are many businesses today, which are simple, small, very competitive, we lose money, so all of them have been identified. I can't tell you which one because it has implications for employees. I think in this year, we might see 2-3 companies which might find its rightful place elsewhere in the world as a part of much bigger companies."

At the same time, the company is looking at niche companies in IT and Artificial Intelligence side for specific technologies. "We have acquired two companies," Naik said.

On the company's future, Subrahmanyan, who took over from Naik, said, "In defence, we have four major programmes, which we have bid for on the defence shipping side. Even if one or two happen during the year, there is a likelihood that in next two months two other major bids, which we have bid for, could be opened. If we are lucky, we have fairly good chance that by fourth quarter one of the contracts could be signed and could take it forward. These are for landing platforms, deep sea diving vessel, etc."

The company is expecting a substantial rise in orderbook this fiscal and early next. "I generally trust and believe that this being the last year for the government can really act, because from next year, sometime in July they have to get into an election mode. Therefore, the bulk of what they want to do will have to be through between now and next July-August. So, hoping for the best," Subrahmanyan said.

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