ITC announces retirement of two top executives; Sanjiv Puri may replace YC Deveshwar

ITC Ltd has informed the stock exchanges that two of its three executive directors — PV Dhobale and Kurush Grant — are retiring as the first had attained the age of superannuation while the second had taken premature retirement for health reasons.

It's preferring President of Cigarettes and FMCG business at ITC, Sanjiv Puri, as the front runner to succeed long serving chairman YC Deveshwar who is scheduled to hang up his boots in 2017. "Puri is the favourite (to be the next chairman) as of now unless there are sweeping promotions in the next few months," according to a source.

The company has also appointed Puri and Rajiv Tandon who is the chief financial officer, as additional whole time directors on the board while Nakul Anand remains executive director for hotel and lifestyle business. Puri will be the youngest of all the executive directors at ITC when he joins the board in December. This even as Anand is senior to Puri both in hierarchy and age. Still the latter is being considered the favorite to succeed Deveshwar as he spearheads the business that accounts for more than 60% of ITC's revenues and 80% of its profits.

An engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur who joined the company in 1986, Puri was promoted last December as the president of both the cigarettes and FMCG businesses of ITC, after handling FMCG distribution and cigarette business as divisional chief executive.

The company missed street estimates for its second quarter financial results and its share fell by 4.3% to Rs 334.70. The company attributed its weak performance to "unprecedented pressure" on legal cigarette industry sales volume, poor demand prevailing in the FMCG industry with instant noodle sales badly hit, and lack of trading opportunities in agri-commodities.
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