Larsen & Toubro Ltd, L&T, has brought in Debashis Chatterjee to run Mindtree, the IT firm it has acquired in a hostile takeover recently. According to a CNBCTV18 report, Debashis will be the new CEO of Mindtree replacing Rostow Ravanan. The promoters of Mindtree who had their roots in Wipro, tried resisting the takeover by L&T. However, the engineering to infrastructure giant had already acquired a large chunk of shares in Mindtree. As per statutory filings, L&T holds a little over 60% of the stakes in the IT firm. L&T has its own company L&T Infotech.
Coming back to Debashis, he has come from Cognizant Technologies (CTS) and was holding the position of Executive Vice President. He was also the President Global Delivery. He takes over at Mindtree from August 1.
While the company has not yet confirmed this, Debashis posted on LinkedIn that his two-decade stint at Cognizant comes to an end on July 31.
“After over two decades of association, my journey at Cognizant ends on July 31. It has been indeed a truly memorable journey. I was fortunate to be part of a leadership team, which steered Cognizant through many S‐curves to great heights. The journey was truly inspirational and extremely enriching. Sincere Thanks to all the leaders, who helped me learn a lot during this journey. Also had the pleasure of working with many Cognizant associates throughout this journey. Our client-first attitude along with a collaborative approach helped us achieve tremendous success for Cognizant. Sincere Thanks to all of you, who partnered with me in this journey. As I take up my next challenge, would like to wish you ALL the very best,” he said in his post.
The Chairman, Vice Chairman and CEO of Mindtree tendered their resignations leaving the slate clean for the new management under L&T to take charge and run the business.
L&T acquired the 60% in different ways. One was around 20% which it purchased from VG Siddhartha, the founder of Café Coffee Day. L&T had paid Rs 3000 crore for this stake. The company then started accumulating more stocks from the market and subsequently made an open offer to buy Mindtree shares.
The company has been facing reverses in its performance with profits plunging and expenses soaring. The company posted a marginal 12% increase in revenue in the quarter ended June 2019, as compared to the same quarter of 2018, but the profit saw a 41% decline from Rs 158.2 crore to Rs 92.7 crore. Expenses during the same period grew 20% to Rs 1,730 crore.
Debashis Chatterjee will have his task cut out at Mindtree.