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Business of Brands

VARUNI KHOSLA & RASUL BAILAYNEW DELHI

New Delhi-based CarnationHospitality has acquired Ba-rista Coffee for .̀ 100 crore fromLavazza Spa, becoming thefourth owner of India’s pio-neer, yet struggling, coffeechain. Lavazza has been look-ing to sell Barista for almost ayear as the Italian group want-ed to exit the business after itfailed to turn around the loss-making coffee chain.

Carnation, a unit of Haryana-based packaging company Rol-latainers, earlier this year en-tered the food segment when itacquired restaurant chainsKylin and Sartoria. It is alsobringing Jamie's Italian Res-taurants to India through afranchise arrangement.

“We have recently expandedour food business and this istruly an exciting developmentfor us. As part of our portfoliowe are adding India's second-largest coffee chain,” Carna-

tion director Sanjay Chhabrasaid. Lavazza wasn’t availablefor comment.

Two people with direct knowl-edge of the matter said Rolla-tainers is owned by auto partscompany Amtek Auto. Rolla-

tainers’ Link-edIn profile al-so calls it anAmtek groupcompany.Sources hadtold ET in Julythat Amtekwas in talkswith Lavazzato acquire Ba-rista. However,

Gaurav Jain, Amtek’s directorfor mergers and acquisitions,had denied any such plan.

The promising café markethas over the years attractedglobal coffee titans includingStarbucks and Dunkin’ Do-nuts. Technopak says thereare 3,100 branded coffee out-lets in India.

varuni.khosla@timesgroup.com

Carnation BuysBarista for .̀ 100 cr

Lavazza hasbeen lookingto sell Baristafor almost ayear as theItalian groupwanted toexit thebusiness

OUR BUREAUMUMBAI

H industan Unilever is splittingits home and personal care(HPC) business into two sepa-

rate divisions for a sharper market-ing focus, translating into a shake-up of its top management that alsosees India’s biggest consumer goods-maker appointing a woman as headof a business division.

Priya Nair, 42, now vice-presi-dent, laundry, will manage homecare at Unilever’s India unit. SamirSingh, 41, in charge of Lifebuoyglobally and personal care lead forthe South Asia cluster, will headpersonal care. The revamp will al-so see Hemant Bakshi, who over-saw the undivided HPC segment atHUL, moving to Unilever Indone-sia as executive vice-president.

Both Nair and Singh will also bepart of the HUL management com-mittee and their appointments are

effective October 1. This isn’t thefirst top appointment for a woman atHUL — Geetu Verma is head of foodsand a member of the managementcommittee while Leena Nair wasearlier human resources head andwas in the management committeeas well. ET reported in 2012 that Nairand Singh were among HUL’s top 10performers and expected to make itto the company’s boardroom.

The company's activities, cur-rently split into HPC and foods,will resemble that of parent Uni-lever, which operates across fourdivisions — personal care, foods,refreshments and home care.

“We have reorganised the homeand personal care business intotwo separate businesses to ensurefocus on the growth drivers foreach of these businesses,” saidSanjiv Mehta, CEO and managingdirector, HUL.

A decade ago, the company repli-cated the organisational structure

of its Anglo-Dutch parent by con-solidating its consumer goodsbusinesses from five segments intotwo — home and personal care be-ing one and foods the other.

HUL now gets nearly 75% of itsrevenue from its HPC portfoliowhile the foods business contrib-

utes 16%. Personal care is growingfaster than home care and is becom-ing an ever larger part of HUL’sbusiness, helped by premium offer-ings and several global brandlaunches.

Six out of HUL’s 11 .̀ 1,000-crore plusbrands — Lux, Lifebuoy, Dove, Fair

& Lovely, Clinic Plus and Pond's —will be housed in the new personalcare division. Home care will havefour .̀ 1,000-crore plus brands — Rin,Surf Excel, Wheel and Vim.

Experts said the move is in linewith Unilever’s global strategy of fo-cusing more on personal care.

"Personal products offer highermargins and are extremely impor-tant in terms of profitability," saidAbneesh Roy, associate director atEdelweiss Securities. “Globally, Uni-lever has been trying to sell foodbrands and most of its recent acquisi-tions are in the personal care space.”For the financial community, HULhas been posting results split intofive segments — soaps and deter-gents that account for nearly halfthe sales, personal products that ac-count for more than 28%, foods, bev-erages and others. Analysts feel thatthe personal care division will con-tribute half the sales going forwardas it will now include soaps as well.

HUL to Split Home and Personal Care Biz Priya Nair to manage home care & Samir Singh personal care units; revamp will also see Hemant Bakshi moving to Indonesia

Priya Nair Samir Singh

Nair (42) joined HUL in the consumer in-sights team in 1995. Under her, the laun-

dry business has won marketsharein the core and lead market develop-ment of emerging segments. Nair did her MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management.

Singh (41) joined Unilever in 1997 as a management trainee in India.

Singh has led global strategy, innova-tion and communication for Lifebuoy with the brand becoming one of the fastest growing in the company. Singh is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow.

Change Management

Why the SUVs ScoreAffordable monthlypayment options

Newly redesigned & crossover utilities

SUVs provide more storage than a sedan, a higher seating position than a station wagon and better styling than a minivan

Sporty Cars Take Pole Position in US

Once considered a relic of the pre-Great Recession world, the SUV has gone from strength to strength. Led by models like Honda’s CR-V, SUVs have now overtaken the sedan as most popular vehicle type in US.

Model Company Sales YoY Change (%)

F-Series Ford 63,240 4.6

Silverado Chevrolet 42,097 0

Ram Dodge 35,621 14.0

CR-V Honda 28,522 4.8

RAV4 Toyota 26,779 37.0

Escape Ford 26,558 19.0

Explorer Ford 19,006 35.0

Figures are for July

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

Text: Karthik Krishnan

Toyota Motor reported record profi t in the April-to-June quarter, refl ecting the strength of SUVs

BMW, the world’s biggest manufacturer of luxury vehicles, reported the highest profi t in three years as sales of its X5 SUV rose 30%

TOP LIGHT TRUCKS (PICK-UPS & SUVS)

TOP CARSCamry Toyota 39,888 15.0

Accord Honda 35,073 11.0

Corolla Toyota 30,833 26.0

Civic Honda 30,038 -7.3

Fusion Ford 23,942 17.0

Sonata Hyundai 22,577 19.0

Segment as % of New Auto Sales(Jan-May)

36.5%SUVs

35.4%SEDANS

NEW DELHI Xiaomi has clar-ified that the Chinese handsetmaker did not upload or storeprivate user information with-out permission, in response tosecurity solutions provider F-Secure and reports from Tai-wan that the company's phoneswere sending user details to aremote server in China, re-ports Our Bureau.

In a blogpost aimed at settlingthe issue, vice-president for in-ternational markets Hugo Bar-ra said that user privacy and da-ta protection were its toppriority and added that ‘users’phonebook contact data or so-

cial graph information (i.e., themapping between contacts) arenever stored on its servers.”Message content, in encryptedform, is not kept for longer thannecessary, he added.

“We apologize for any con-cern caused to our users andMi fans,” he said.

Barra explained that the re-ports talked about a free servicecalled Cloud Messaging as partof its MIUI operating system,which allows users to exchangetext messages over the internetinstead of using a telco’s textmessaging platform. The ser-vice activates users.

China’s Xiaomi DeniesViolating Privacy Norms

BANGALORE Synup, a year-old-company that helps small busi-nesses manage their online presence, has raised $500,000 (.̀ 3crore) in a round led by Bangalore-based startup incubator An-gelPrime to boost marketing and strengthen its technology,writes Krithika Krishnamurthy. When 23-year-old cofoun-der Ashwin Ramesh was running his first online advertisingcompany OrganicApex, he felt the need for digital marketingservices that could work for local businesses. Synup was bornlast August in Bangalore, and now, within three months of hav-ing launched services, it has roped in a few hundred paying cus-tomers in Canada and the US.

Marketing Co Synup Raises .̀ 3 cr