Ravi Uppal, whole-time director and President (Power), L&T, has resigned from the company. The resignation will be effective September 15, L&T said in a filing to the stock exchange.
Company insiders said Uppal’s exit looked imminent from the day K. Venkataramanan took over as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in March.
Indications are that E&C division head S.N. Subrahmanyan who is young by L&T standards, would be a serious contender for the top post in 2015 when Venkataramanan retires. The writing was on the wall, said a senior L&T official. But to be fair to Uppal, the business environment in the power business was such that his division just did not make the impact on the balance-sheet as was expected of him, he said.
Another issue was that he was an outsider in the company’s hierarchy unlike others who had quite a few decades of service in L&T. The buzz is that Uppal is set to join Cairn India, though he has dismissed this as ‘speculation.’