Way To Go: Mithun Chittilappilly, MD, V-Guard Industries
Mithun Chittilappilly joined this family business in 2006 as Executive Director, Finance & Marketing. Under his watchful eyes, the company was listed in 2008. A year later Chittilappilly expanded the operations to other parts of India. Until then V-Guard Industries was predominantly a south Indian brand.
Chittilappilly took over as the MD in 2012 from his father and founder and chairman emeritus of V-Guard. He is an MBA from Melbourne Business School.
New Benchmarks
In FY22, the company clocked net revenues of Rs 3,474.65 crore, recording a jump of 28.7 per cent over the previous fiscal year, along with an EBITDA of Rs 332.14 crore. "I am pleased to share that we set new benchmarks in terms of the highest-ever revenues for both Q4 (when we crossed the milestone of Rs 1,000 crore quarterly revenue for the first time) and the full fiscal year," said Chittilappilly.
He acknowledged that in a difficult year the company had to take measures to stay ahead of the curve. "We were also forced to take some large price hikes across our portfolio to manage our costs and ensure operational continuity through the year, as factory-related costs also shot up with the commencement of manufacturing operations in Roorkee and Sikkim. Other cost elements such as travel and freight also went up as branch operations started to return to regular mode from the second half of the year, and additionally on account of the significantly higher diesel prices," he said.
Pan-India Operations
In the period under review, both electrical and consumer durables segments posted strong growth, offsetting the somewhat muted growth in the electronics business for the company. Chittilappilly said: "I am happy to say that our geographical diversification strategy played out well, with both the south and non-south markets contributing to the performance positively during the year to help us deliver a balanced growth."
The company manufactures voltage stabilisers, electrical cable, electric pumps, electric motors, geysers, solar water heaters, electric fans and UPSs. It was founded in 1977 by Kochouseph Chittilappilly as a small voltage stabiliser manufacturing unit.
