Retreat of a titan

Uday Chatterjee
29 December 2003

Mumbai: Last week the news, though not unexpected, was officially out. D S Brar, CEO and managing director, Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, will be out of Ranbaxy when his term expires in July 2004.

Known to be abrasive and sometimes even churlish to his colleagues, there will be quite a few in Ranbaxy who will be happy to see the last of Brar. But at the end of the day, you have to give the devil its due. Brar was significantly responsible for making Ranbaxy the ''world-class'' and globally competitive company it is today.

In 1977, Brar, a fresh management graduate, joined Ranbaxy, which at that time was a family-owned company engaged in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals at Mohali in Haryana. The company was run by Bhai Mohan Singh, the founder, and later by his son, Dr Parvinder Singh, who also played a stellar role in making the company what it is today and in mentoring Brar.

Till a decade ago, the company was somewhat of a yet another middle-of-the-rung Indian pharmaceutical company. That was the time when Parvinder Singh took the bold step to make Ranbaxy a research-based pharmaceutical company and ever since then, the fortunes of the company looked up and up.

Ranbaxy was perhaps the first domestic pharmaceutical company to make a systematic attempt to reach to the world''s biggest pharmaceutical markets. The thrust overseas came about even while the domestic market was growing fast, and held considerable promise. In the domestic market, Ranbaxy was, and is, among the largest companies with a powerful presence in antibiotics, the largest therapeutic segment in India. By the year 2004, the company is expected to become a billion-dollar company. Ranbaxy received The Economic Times Award for Corporate Excellence for ''The Company of the Year 2002-03.''

While performance matters have been hunky-dory, the same could not be said about relations between the top management. In the early nineties, differences cropped up between Bhai Mohan Singh and his son, Parvinder. The differences were over the route Parvinder was charting for Ranbaxy and in good time, Bhai Mohan Singh became a mute spectator of the on-goings at Ranbaxy. At this stage, he was staunchly supported by Brar, who, though not a family member, had virtually become the No 2 at Ranbaxy.