Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra has laid out two magic mantras of ‘Scale and Synergies’ for accelerated growth in the immediate future.
Addressing the shareholders at the 77th Annual General Meeting, Mahindra informed that the group has identified the four main business areas and the nine other businesses with high growth potential, and he is confident that the group will witness an astounding pace of growth in the next few years.
“The first objective now is scale, scale, and more scale,” he declared and said the group’s unique federated structure empowers every business to pursue its own growth path while freely drawing upon synergies that arise from group companies all working in close collaboration with each other.
The chairman said, “The Mahindra Group has another Brahmastra – a secret weapon – and that is the power of Synergy. Synergies of scale, synergies of purchase, synergies of customer bases, synergies of technology – all these positively impact the bottom line.”
The Group has taken up the 5X challenge for each of its growth gems – wherein these growth gems have to grow five times in the next 5-7 years in terms of market cap.
In the Auto business, the growth gems are Last Mile Mobility Business and Classic Legends, under the farm business, the growth gem is Farm Machinery Business and under its Services arm, the growth gems are Mahindra Logistics, Mahindra Lifespaces, Mahindra Accelo, and Club Mahindra amongst others.
Reflecting on the past few years, Mahindra claims that the economy has been full of ups and downs – financial turmoil, geopolitical uncertainty, climate change, natural disasters, and of course, the pandemic that took its toll on businesses everywhere.
“In spite of all this volatility, we have had great financial results. Over the last couple of years, we have taken a good, hard look at capital allocation and sharpened our strategies for growth. We have clearly identified the businesses that we are betting on for future growth and nurtured them. These strategies are paying off,” he asserted.
He reminded that the Group had set a target of 18% Return on Equity in a 3 to 5-year timeline, however, M&M was able to achieve it within 18 months. Hence the company has also rewarded the shareholders with the highest dividend in its history.
“Our share price has gone up five times since the pandemic years. It has been a satisfying year,” he told shareholders.