| Date: |
22-03-2016 |
| Subject: |
Tata Steel veteran Partha Sengupta joins JSW Steel |
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MUMBAI: JSW Steel has appointed Partha Sengupta, a veteran of rival Tata Steel, as president for its steel plants in Maharashtra as chairman Sajjan Jindal prepares to scale up the company after a tough year of competing with cheap Chinese imports.
The Mumbai-based company has given Sengupta charge of overseeing the capacity expansion at Dolvi steel plant to 5 million tonnes from 3.3 million tonnes at a cost of Rs 3,300 crore. He will also manage the sponge iron plant the company acquired from Welspun Group in 2014.
Sengupta, who joined the steelmaker in October 2015, reports to Vinod Nowal, deputy managing director at JSW Steel. He quit Tata Steel in early 2014 after losing out to TV Narendran for the post of managing director, India and Southeast Asia. He joined Swaymbhu Natural Resources Private Ltd after leaving Tata Steel as its CEO.
"He is a great talent to have. We thought if he is available and we must hire him. We can take advantage of his experience and expertise," Nowal told ET.
Until 2013 Sengupta was the vice president-raw materials at Tata Steel, responsible for raw material supply, security and mining acquisitions. He was later made vice president-special projects, a move which many believed indicated he was being sidelined. His name had cropped up in the mining scam case against former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda. He was also questioned with respect to former colleague Charu Deshpande's suicide in 2013.
Sengupta has joined JSW Steel at a time when steelmakers from around the world, including India, have suffered heavy losses after Chinese steel mills dumped excess steel in the global market at deeply subsidised rates. India also had to compete with imports from Russia, Japan and South Korea. Many steel companies cut prices sharply to maintain sales volumes in domestic markets.
JSW posted losses in two of the first three quarters in the current financial year. The company has got some breather, with the government imposing minimum import prices and anti-dumping duties on Chinese imports.
The unexpected surge in imports put a dampener on Jindal's ambitious plans to scale up steelmaking capacity to 40 million tonnes by 2025 through organic growth and acquisitions. The company is trying to make up for the recent losses caused by unprecedented imports into the country.
Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com
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