New entrants in the BS 1000 listing

Business Standard has profiles of new entrants in its latest BS 1000 listing of companies. The new entrants include OnMobile Global, Page Industries, Indage Vintners, Educomp, Shriram EPC, Temptation Foods and Cairn India.

Vinit Kumar though doesn’t worry too much that he’s not shedding the extra pounds. A self-confessed foodie, the chairman and managing director of Temptation Foods quit Reliance Industries in 1996 to pick up a stake in the ailing company. He bought out the owners for about Rs 1 crore – the company’s losses at the time were in the region of Rs 5 crore—and restructured it. Working in Reliance, he says, inspired him to become an entrepreneur and armed with a 13 per cent stake, he’s now in the midst of a takeover battle with the Arora family for control of Kohinoor Foods.

Kumar, who enjoys Italian and Japanese food, as much as the ‘thali’ at Golden Star on Mumbai’s Charni road, wants to sell processed and ready-to-eat foods and create brands for spices, snacks, frozen vegetables and rice. Currently, nearly 85 per cent of the products are exported and the company’s looking to earn revenues of close to Rs 1,000 crore in 2009-10 which would be a three fold increase over the Rs 328 crore posted in 2007-08. “Several super markets and retailers overseas already stock our products,” he observes. If there’s something that he’s more passionate about than food, it’s art. Kumar, whose apartment is full of paintings, believes that the secret to success lies in hiring good people and retaining them.

Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports. Email the author at arun@ventureintelligence.in