Indian packaging company Essel Propack Ltd said on Thursday it has appointed Sudhanshu Vats as its new managing director and chief executive officer.
In a stock-exchange filing, the company said Vats’s appointment will be effective immediately and he will also be on its board as an additional director.
Prior to this appointment, Vats was serving as the MD and Group CEO of media organisation Viacom18, a subsidiary of Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad and the National Institute of Technology-Kurukshetra, Vats helped build Viacom’s traditional and digital media offerings, including over-the-top platform Voot.
Before Viacom18, Vats spent over 20 years at multinational consumer goods company Unilever, where he took on various sales, marketing and general management roles. Apart from this, he also holds positions with the Confederation of Indian Industry, Indian Broadcasting Foundation and the Broadcast Audience Research Council.
Shares of the Mumbai-based Essel Propack ended the day 5.99% up at Rs 174.35 apiece. The company reported consolidated net sales of Rs 2,706.93 crore for the 2019 financial year with profit-after-tax figures of Rs 187.02 crore for the same period, according to VCCEdge, the data research arm of Mosaic Digital.
In April last year, global private equity firm Blackstone Group LP agreed to acquire a majority stake in Essel Propack for as much as $460 million (around Rs 3,211 crore at the time). The PE firm said it would buy a 51% stake from Essel’s promoters for Rs 2,157 crore and make an open offer to purchase an additional 26% from the public shareholders
Before Blackstone’s announcement, French packaging company Albéa, Indorama and US-based private equity giant The Carlyle Group were also in the fray for Essel Propack, according to media reports.
