Supratik Basu, CFO, Tide Water Oil, has been adjudged winner in the category of Best Public Sector Undertaking, medium size by taking into account not just the financial performance of the company for the past three years but also for having steered the company in challenging circumstances. The jury was unanimous on Basu and Tide Water Oil, the makers and distributors of Veedol brand of lubricants. The company has managed to maintain a little over 5 per cent increase in its revenue during the past three financial years. But noticeably, Tide Water Oil posted triple digit growth in its net profit in FY2015.
The jury members were impressed by the recent performance of the company, particularly the acquisition of Veedol International through which the company got the global rights to a wide portfolio of registered trademarks for the master brand Veedol as well as its associate product sub-brands and iconic logos. Tide Water Oil floated two wholly owned subsidiaries Veedol International DMCC, Dubai and Veedol International BV, Netherlands to cater to markets in the Middle East and Asian region and Europe, respectively, in FY2015. In the same period Veedol Deutschland GmbH was incorporated as a 100 per cent subsidiary of Veedol International BV which helped re-launch the brand in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Veedol International has also licensed the Veedol brand to a licensee in North America and another licensee in Bangladesh for sales, the jury noted stating that all this work shows the active involvement and foresight of an efficient CFO.
Tide Water Oil is an associate company of the Andrew Yule Group which was founded in 1863 and incorporated as private limited in 1919. However, after Independence, the company was converted into a public limited company in 1948 and became a central public sector enterprise in 1979 with the acquisition of 49 per cent equity share in 1974 and an additional 2 per cent in 1979 by the Indian government. Basu has been the CFO at Tide Water Oil for the past five years. The company has been one of the leading players in the Indian lubricant industry since 1928. Veedol brand of lubricants today have a pan-India distribution network consisting of 50 distributors and over 650 dealers servicing more than 50,000 retail outlets, the company says in its external communications.
ashish.sinha@businessworld.in
BW Reporters
Ashish Sinha is an experienced business journalist who has covered FMCG, auto, infrastructure, tourism, telecom among several other beats. Ashish has keen interest in the regulatory scenario impacting different sectors. He writes on aviation, railways, post and telegraph, infrastructure, defence, media & entertainment, among a wide variety of other subjects.
