21 Jan 2008, 0041 hrs IST
,Pankaj
Doval,TNN
NEW DELHI:
Jagdish Khattar seems to be a man in hurry. The
IAS-turned-corporate honcho, fresh after a long
innings at Maruti Suzuki, is busy chalking out
his next course of action as an "entrepreneur
manager."
After retiring
from the post of managing director last month,
Khattar has already firmed up investment and
partnership plans for his next interface with
the automobile industry - a pan-India
multi-brand service and retail network.
The 65-year-old
Khattar was in Maruti Suzuki for well over a
decade, the country's biggest car company.
"I always thought
of myself as an entrepreneur-manager and feel
that now is the time for doing just that,"
Khattar told
TOI in his
first interview on post-retirement plans. And he
backs his conviction with concrete plans,
pointing out the loose-ends and possible
weaknesses that the booming automobile industry
is facing.
"The car market
in India is set to expand from one million units
annually to two million units in the coming
years and this would require more showrooms and
workshops, calling for Rs 8,000-10,000 crore
investments, considering high set-up costs,
including the real estate," Khattar said.
And this is where
the opportunity lies, he feels, pointing out
that existing dealers would not have the
resources to cope with this demand.
"I plan to start
a company that will have joint ventures across
the country to provide this infrastructure and
it would be at a far lesser cost, considering it
will be multi-brand (separate showrooms for each
brand)," Khattar said.
As per his plans,
Khattar has lined up capital expenditure of Rs
1,500 crore through a holding company where
apart from him, a real estate company and an
insurance company will be roped in as
stakeholders. "People are coming to us and we
would forge partnerships and joint ventures with
like-minded entrepreneurs in various parts of
the country to spread the network," he said.
He refused to
disclose names of the companies he was speaking
to, though it is believed that they include all
the major real estate players like DLF, Unitech
and Parsvnath. "A core team is already in place,
which also includes people from abroad who have
been part of such multi-brand formats," Khattar
said.
While initially
the outlets will focus on spares and service, it
will expand to sales of new car, vehicle
accessories and even second-hand cars in the
coming years, he said.
"We plan to have
the first couple of units operational by the end
of this year," Khattar said, insisting that he
was "not competing with the existing network of
car companies."
He said his
venture plans to have around 100 outlets in the
next four to five years.
Source
: The Economic Times
