Segal admitted: “There are a lot of problems with this system.”

Written by Anurag Kotoky

Vivek Chaand Sehgal has a track record of achieving the seemingly impossible. His company supplies bulk parts to the world’s largest automakers. It has exceeded its five-year target every year for the last 25 years.

His latest goal was just as difficult. Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd. aims to triple its revenue by 2025 to $36 billion. 63 Sehgal plans to achieve that goal by doing what he does best: trading. Or, more specifically, acquiring a company that is struggling because of the coronavirus epidemic.

But for that to happen, conditions at Segal would have to improve dramatically. Five years ago, Motherson set a consolidated net sales target of $18.1 billion by 2020, but the company failed to reach $12 billion due to a viral attack and the worst auto sales slowdown in India’s history. The stock plunged nearly 60% over the same period and has doubled this fiscal year.

There are a lot of problems with the system,” Sehgal acknowledged. But he believes the company’s focus on solving customer problems and reviewing transactions “will give us all kinds of opportunities in the coming months.” “I think you’re probably at 101010101010” month or 11 He told Bloomberg News that we will go ahead and acquire the company sometime in the month.

Later, this approach became the Samvardhana Motherson Group The name of the organization was Sehgall 1975 with his mother Year founded. In 1986 2000, he formed a joint venture with Sumitomo Wiring Systems Ltd. of Japan, a small trading company that grew to channel products such as those for India’s first locally produced cars. Since 2007, Motherson Sumi has completed more than a dozen mergers and acquisitions worldwide, sometimes acquiring companies twice its size. Today, the company sells products ranging from interiors to wiring harnesses, bumpers, door panels, lighting and more.

Automotive Manufacturing Elite

Sehgal hitchhiking assets Typical example of his 2009 hitchhiking assets The annual acquisition of Britain’s Visiocoro Plc group. Motherson was approached by a German client to rescue the company when the global economy struggled after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. After much deliberation, it acquired Visiocorp for €26.5 million, doubling its size to €660 million ($782.1 million) in sales and making it the world’s largest manufacturer of mirrors overnight.

Sehgal said Motherson’s target consolidated revenue for the next five years 80% of the future will come from acquisitions and entry into new areas such as medical devices, aerospace, security systems and logistics. He said that small businesses lack cash compared to large corporations, which gives Motherson a new goal.

The size or geographic location of Motherson’s mergers and acquisitions is not determined in advance. Instead, we remain focused on helping our customers keep their production lines up and running. Even if a small supplier goes out of business, production could stop, Sehgal said. “Solutions don’t come on a large scale. The solution is, if it’s a $10,000 family, for a $1,000 company, I’ll buy it without customers lining up, and if it’s a $1,000 company, a $100 million company, I’ll buy it. Do.’

The group’s customers are elite automakers, including General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen. Sehgal is worth about $2.01 billion, based on the family’s 36 percent stake in publicly traded Sumi, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Sehgal declined to comment.

Billionaire upgrade

His actual net worth (including other assets) will almost certainly be higher than that, and could become clearer as early as July next year following a group reorganization. In the process, the Motherson Sumi local wiring harness business will be split into a new wholly-owned company, while the Samvardhanana Motherson unlisted assets will be transferred to the original company. The two companies will be listed separately, which analysts say will allow them to determine their valuations and better compare themselves with global peers.

While everything related to electric cars is making waves on the stock market, Siegel isn’t so optimistic. Contrary to most automakers and governments that talk about modern technology and cleaner, self-driving cars, he says a lack of infrastructure and geopolitical tensions will ensure that the internal combustion engine remains relevant for decades to come.

“The car will remain essentially the same every year for the next 20,” Sehgal said. “Automakers have asked me to expand into other areas, but they haven’t asked me to go into electric vehicles.” ‘

When Sehgal talks about the future, she often mentions her age. “I’m 63 years old.” He goes on to say “-,” which inevitably leads to questions of succession. More than.

“I will retire after completing four tasks,” Sehgal said, adding, “In India, it is customary to take the dead to the crematorium.” I proposed to him a plan for the next five years. So, at age 68 About a year or so, you might start thinking about spending time with your grandchildren. There are four grandchildren. ‘

For Sehgal it’s a worthwhile future, 45 A few years ago, he started earning 1 kilogram of silver rupees per kilogram of silver he transported for his grandfather. His mother’s family were jewelers and his father’s family worked in the film industry. Motherson Sumi was launched in 1993 in Mumbai. Those who continued the process saw their investments grow with an annual total return of 32%. This is three times the average annual gain of the benchmark SP BSE Sensex Index over the same period.

Sehgal attributes much of his success to his entrepreneurial mother.

“My mom was worried because I wasn’t doing well in school, so she said we weren’t going to look back from then on,” Sehgal said. “It was a perfect record. There were a lot of big bosses there.”

–With an assist from Ravil Shirodkar.