Rajesh Agarwal | BS TRANSCOMM

As told to Shreyasi Singh

Photograph By Prabhakar Rao

When we launched the issue on October 6 last year, JM Financial, our merchant bankers, had a very strong commitment from the funds. But what happened was that there was a rally of issues in September. All of them listed in the first week of October. In fact, there were five IPOs in three days. None of those issues did well. The people who had committed to us suddenly felt the valuations were very high. Till the evening of October 7, we had commitments. Next morning, those who committed had stopped taking calls from our merchant bankers. We weren’t able to push them. So, we extended the issue by three working days, and lowered our price band to Rs 248 to Rs 257 per share, from Rs 257 to Rs 266 per share.

It was stressful but I was very optimistic that things would be just fine. They’ll end well. In fact, I had a good time in Mumbai because my wife had travelled with me, and my brother had come from Nagpur. We went out for dinner with friends every night and watched movies in the evening. During such stressful times, you have to detach yourself from the problem. Taking a break also helps your mind think up fresher ideas. There wasn’t much I could do anyway. When the issue was extended by three working days, a weekend fell in between. Nothing could be done then, in any case. Obviously detaching yourself isn’t all that easy. You have to try hard to make it happen.

The stock market is the craziest phenomenon possible. Things change very fast at the bourse. You can’t blame your merchant bankers or start pointing fingers. Nobody can absolutely time this perfectly. Till the meter doesn’t show, it doesn’t show. Like I said, this didn’t give me sleepless nights. I had faith things would end well. And they did. We raised Rs 190 crore from our listing.

Yes, the listing has taught me one thing—you cannot just outsource this to your merchant bankers, or anybody else; you really have to lead yourself. There are no regrets but I feel we could’ve done more. Before the listing, people would call me to say they’ll subscribe and we would say a straight no because we were so confident. We had just left it to our merchant bankers.

Getting listed felt good. It’s like we have climbed another step. We had tried to list our family firm in 1993 but had to abandon those plans because of the Harshad Mehta scam. Today, I know going public is an important step but that’s all it is, one more step. There’s still a very long way to go.

I’ve also made sure that I monitor stock prices only once a day after 4pm. It’s not like I have CNBC on all day. I’ll only switch it on once a day for 15 minutes to get the news. It’s important to keep this discipline because the stock market is the biggest distraction. One of my brothers is quite interested in it. But I tell him to stay away from the panel. I’ve told him to leave the company if stocks is what he wants to do. If you get too involved in the market, you won’t be able to do anything else.

At BS TransComm, I’m not just driven by growth in numbers—manufacturing volume or wealth creation. We want to really add value to the industry we’re in. We made a recent acquisition of Sugan Automatics, a company which creates technology solutions for telecom, power and infrastructure, our main verticals. With Sugan Automatics coming into our fold, our R&D has got a fillip. My technology people are working very hard on solutions that will reduce distribution wastage in the power sector. Few people know that the telecom sector is India’s second-largest consumer of diesel. There are 400,000 telecom towers in India. We manage 6,000 of them. We are working on a green and fixed energy solution for these towers. Once we have it, we will be able to reduce costs by 10-15 per cent. We’ve also tied up with a solar cell company in Singapore. Trials with them are on right now.

I want BS Group, the main holding company for all my businesses, to grow to a billion dollars by 2013. I know it’s just two years away but we’ll get there. Last year, we did Rs 871 crores of business. We are looking at over 40 per cent growth.

I might have built profitable companies in IT, steel, power and telecom but I’m actually just a Class XII graduate. I have a Bachelor’s by correspondence. But that wasn’t real education. It’s just a piece of paper. In business though, you don’t need domain expertise. When we launched i-Vantage, I didn’t even have an e-mail id.I created my first e-mail account in 2004. That’s also when I learnt how to use the computer. Till then, I was a steel trader. We only needed phones for our business. My environment changed 360 degrees. I had to adapt quickly.

I firmly believe that being on the learning curve is great. I tell my human resource people all the time—look for people with passion, not skill, when you interview. Yes, supposedly untrained people might not give you great deliverables in the first three to six months, but eventually you’ll see the results. Somebody who thinks he/she knows it all, doesn’t want to learn.

I think my restlessness helps when I’m in a new situation. I can’t sit idle. I am made like that. A famous tarot card reader once told me that I’m somebody who’ll make up a problem to create activity. I need action. I just enrolled in a Yoga Kriya course for one and-a-half months and my energy levels have shot up. People in my office are wondering how they’ll handle more of me. Luckily for them, I’m not involved with operations any more. I only help in strategy, finance, relationships or looking at the future. If I get back into operations now, my team will run away.

I’m not afraid to follow my ambitions. Life will throw you ups and downs. But eventually, if you let it, it will take you forward. In 2006, after transitioning very successfully from i-Vantage, the IT firm I’d set up with my friend, I lost a huge amount of money in an iron shore shipment. I almost lost it all. But, I learnt again. I’m not afraid. I’ve seen a lot in the last six years.

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