Obituary | Corporate chieftain Yogi Deveshwar’s indelible yet incomplete legacy
Live MintSome legacies are easy to assess, especially if they happen to be those of corporate chieftains. BAT still has a 29% stake in the Indian company, but its influence over the Indian business, following Deveshwar’s coup in 1996, has been minimal. Today ITC’s distribution network extends to nearly four million outlets directly and indirectly and is the bedrock of several subsequent business expansions. Once the cigarettes business was sufficiently streamlined, Deveshwar turned his attention to leveraging this enormous distribution network and the company’s marketing skills for success in other businesses such as fast moving consumer goods, hotels, paperboards & paper, packaging and agri-business. If today nearly 60% of the company’s net revenue comes from non-cigarette businesses, and 56% of its $7.1 billion of export earnings over the last 10 years have come from agri-products, it is entirely to Deveshwar’s credit.
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