Looking back at his college days, PB Balaji recalls how the poor quality of food at IIT Chennai prompted him to contest for the post of mess secretary. It was much the same story later at IIM Kolkata, but by then he had reconciled to canteen fare and decided that another stint as mess secretary just wasn’t worth it.
The bright side of this is that Balaji, 54, is now a good cook and by his own admission, a sort of sous chef to his wife. The genesis of this love for cooking is the many disappointing meals in restaurants. Now, the family tries out new recipes every weekend.
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Trying out something new and the passion to go off the beaten track extends to the workplace as well. Both FY21 and FY22 were tough for the Tata Motors CFO as he attempted to steer the firm out of a financial difficulty. Nine weeks into the pandemic, the cash burn had hit Rs 8,500 crore with just three trucks sold. “Large scale businesses like ours can’t afford to switch off their engines, they need to be in motion,” says Balaji who patiently reassured dealers and suppliers and negotiated with bankers till late into the nights. Long conversations were held with ratings agencies to convince them to hold on until the situation improved.
Balaji believes it was the decision to go debt-free that restored all-round confidence in the management. The finance team did the numbers; the plan was to reduce the cash burn by 50% but also make sure that when growth resurfaced, there would be enough capital to put on the table. It was a tough call because where Tata Motors would typically spend Rs 4,000 crore or so on capex, it had to make do with just Rs 1,000 crore. Every penny was important and the budgeting schedule moved from an annual exercise to a weekly one.
In many ways, a $40-billion Tata company was operating like a start-up; nimble, laser-focused and flexible, Balaji says.
But, it was in these bad times that the seeds of electric vehicle (EV) subsidiarisation and external investments were sown and the EV business took off.
Amidst the dire predictions of doomsayers, some of whom said the company should raise equity when the price of the stock was at sub-70 levels, Balaji and his team worked out a deal with TPG for an investment of $1 billion in Tata Motors’ EV subsidiary. And despite combined losses of nearly Rs 25,000 crore in FY21 and FY22, Tata Motors, Balaji and his team were able to make sure the business did not suffer. In August 2022, the company was in a position to announce the acquisition of the Ford plant in Sanand.
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Gruelling work schedules have led to a few sacrifices, photography being one of them. He, does, however store a good picture when he sees one and has built up a collection of photographs. Weekends are for cooking and for unwinding in the form of watching Tamil and Hindi hit films, or listening to RD Burman and Salil Choudhury numbers.
Once he is done with the corporate world, Balaji plans to start a whole new innings doing something that he hasn’t done so far.
