KOLKATA: EIH, the Oberoi Group flagship, may put together a leadership succession plan in place within the next year or two. The company has also decided that all future expansion will be through managing hotels, where it has little or no investment.
Speaking at the company's 60th annual general meeting in the city on Tuesday, EIH chairman and chief executive PRS Oberoi did not want to reveal too much about his succession plan, but gave enough hints to suggest it was on his mind. "I think about it all the time and will put it into action when the appropriate time comes," he said.
While Mr Oberoi took over from his illustrious father Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi, his son Vikram and nephew Arjun are both joint managing directors now. Mr Oberoi has been talking about a succession plan for quite a few years now at EIH's annual meeting with shareholders, but nothing much has concretised apparently.
Naturally, as has become customary at all EIH's AGMs, the question about the company's strategy regarding defence of its turf had to crop up, and it did. Mr Oberoi said that EIH will continue with its policy of increasing promoter holding from the current level of 46.4%. To the inevitable paired question on whether ITC, with its present 14.98% shareholding in EIH, was a potential threat, Mr Oberoi said : "Mr Deveshwar has made several statements saying he has no intention of bothering us. We can only take his word for it. We have 46.4%. I'm not worried. Why is there so much speculation anyway? Many companies have a 14% stake in others."
EIH vice-chairman SS Mukherji chipped in, saying : "The plan is to gradually raise our own stake, and upto 5% can be done in a year as per the legal limit. But it depends on the market. There is no time plan. If the market goes down we may even acquire that over the next few months."
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