MSSL parent company profiled in Mint, Indian business newspaper

An article published this week in Mint, India’s second-largest business newspaper, provides new insights into Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd. and its chairman, Vivek Chaand Sehgal.
Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd. Is the parent company of MSSL Wiring System Inc., formerly known as Stoneridge, in Portland.
Sehgal, 58, is Indian by birth but is now an Australian citizen and lives in Dubai. Forbes magazine has estimated his net worth at $2.7 billion.
He began his business career working for his grandfather’s silver shop in Delhi, and in 1975 set up a company with his mother to trade in silver. Its name was Motherson.
“I did not like the name of the company. It sounded like a nappy (diaper) manufacturer,” Sehgal told Mint’s Amrit Raj. “But today, if you offer (me) a trillion dollars, I won’t sell the name.”
Sehgal later established a wiring business, but it didn’t flourish until 1983 when Japanese automaker Maruti Suzuki set up a joint venture with the Indian government to make cars in India.
Maruti Suzuki continues to be a major customer, along with Daimler, Volkswagen, and Toyota. According to Mint, 48 percent of the company’s revenues come from North America and Europe and 18 percent from India.
In all, the parent group Samvardhana Motherson has 227 companies and makes about 1,100 different auto components. It has acquired 16 companies – including the Stoneridge wiring harness business – since 2000.
“A lot of the vendors are not in a position to satisfy the customers,” Sehgal told Mint. “So that’s an opportunity for a good supplier (like us) and that’s the basis of our confidence.”
While Sehgal is looking for organic growth to fuel his ambitious goals for higher revenue, he is also open to more acquisitions.
“Tomorrow if there is a company which is bigger than my group, I will still go for it,” he told Mint.

Blasts proposal
Jeff Lautt, chief executive officer of POET, has responded critically to the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule on renewable fuel volume obligations.
“Today’s proposal by the EPA puts the oil industry’s agenda ahead of farmers and rural America,” Lautt said in a prepared statement. “While the EPA is correct in recognizing the intent of Congress to continue growth in biofuels, the targets announced today fall well short of rural America’s potential to produce low-cost clean burning fuel.”
POET is the parent company of POET Biorefining Portland.

Vera in trouble
Fort Wayne’s Vera Bradley Inc. saw its stock hit an all-time low this week after reporting a fiscal first-quarter loss of $4.1 million or 10 cents per diluted common share.
That translates into a drop of more than $10.5 million for the same period last year.
The handbag manufacturer closed its sewing operations in New Haven earlier this year.
“We are not attracting enough new customers to the brand, and traffic and sales are still very challenging,” said chief executive Robert Wallstrom in a prepared statement.

Digital drive-in
Starlight Drive-In of Mercer County has made the leap into the digital age.
Theatres and drive-ins across the country have struggled to handle the transition to digital projection, and many have closed.
Starlight, located along U.S. 127 south of Celina, has obtained a one-year lease on a new digital projector.
“If we don’t go digital, we don’t get more films. It’s that simple,” owner Joan Myers told The Daily Standard.

Networking
The Jay County Chamber of Commerce will hold its monthly networking breakfast at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 10, at West Jay Community Center in Dunkirk.
Curtis Johnson, business program specialist for the USDA’s Rural Development program, will be the featured speaker.
To make reservations, contact the chamber at (260) 726-4481 by Monday.

Still lowest
Mercer County again holds the lowest unemployment rate in the state of Ohio with a jobless rate of 2.9 percent in April. The Ohio jobless rate was 5.2 percent.

Discontented?
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that some new initiatives by McDonald’s Corp. are ruffling feathers of the company’s franchisees.
The Journal reported that U.S. franchisees’ revenue dropped last year to an average of just over $2.4 million per restaurant, down from 2013’s level of $2.5 million. A recent survey of 32 franchisees who operate more than 200 restaurants rated relations with the company at their lowest level in more than 11 years.
But a McDonald’s spokesman said the concerns are overblown. “Our relationship with franchisees remains strong, and we are all focused on the turnaround plan being implement across the country,” a spokesman told The Journal.