Top officials’ exit continues at Hindustan Motors

Hindustan Motors, the maker of the age-old iconic Ambassador car, is going through exits at the top level management. Even the chief GM of sales and marketing, Ratan Singh has now joined the list of senior officials of the company who have recently left the company. As per the sources, Singh put down his papers on August 13 because he was not satisfied and happy with the functioning and poor financial condition of the organisation. In July, Romesh Lalwani, assistant general manager (North Zone) had left the company. R Santhanam, company's managing director had already resigned in May. According to a HM spokesperson all this change is a normal industry movement.

The spokesman even added that with the change in top management and even otherwise, in the automotive industry, such moves keep happening and are not unusual. The sources say that the salaries are being delayed in HM. The company had said that it would approach BIFR (Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction). The sources also stated that the advance money which is collected from dealers is being utilised for other purposes. This results in the delay of up to three months in delivery of vehicles to them, added the sources. But the company’s spokesperson refuted this and said that the demand for the vehicles of Hindustan Motors is increasing and under such fluctuating market conditions, the volume ramp up takes some time and so the delivery may get delayed.

During the month of May, Hindustan Motors had made an announcement for approaching  the BIFR as its total losses at the end of financial year March 31, 2010, resulted in erosion of over 50 per cent of its  net worth during the earlier four financial years. HM's net loss was at Rs 42.85 crore, with net sales of Rs 576.90 crore for the fiscal 2009-10.

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