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Gramophone renaming part of repositioning move

Our Bureau

CALCUTTA, Aug. 10

RPG Enterprises has decided to change the name of Gramophone Company India Ltd (GCIL) to Saregama India Ltd (SIL) as part of a repositioning exercise.

Mr. Sanjiv Goenka, GCIL's Vice-Chairman, told newspersons here on Thursday that the idea was to shed the image of an old staid company and acquire a more contemporaneous image of a ``lean, mean, hungry and aggressive'' organisation. Mr. Goenka expressed his optimism that the new name would reflect a new spirit of robustness.

The repositioning involved cost cutting, trimming workforce and buying music rights as well as making acquisitions -- mostly of regional brands.

He said that despite the rechristening, expected to be completed in four weeks, the group would continue to use the HMV brand name as well as the time-tested logo alongside the Seragama name and new logo.

At pains to explain the rationale behind the renaming, he emphasised that the idea was to create a distinct worldwide identity for Indian music. GCI has copyrights for 70 per cent of total Indian music which has been recorded till date.

``Sa re ga ma are the notes that every Indian identifies with'', he said.

GCIL's subsidiary, Saregama Plc, is doing well catering to the Indian population abroad. It is listed at OFEX, London. Pointing out SIL was to be promoted as an international brand, Mr. Goenka said that there were plans to list SIL either on the Nasdaq o r the New York Stock Exchange. Details such as the size of the issue and the timing would be finalised by this year-end.

On manpower trimming, he informed that Arthur Andersen had suggested a 25 per cent reduction in the 800-strong workforce of GCIL. ``To increase efficiency and productivity, we will tap the route of employee reduction as well as capacity augmentation at o ur Dumdum factory'', he said.

While the capacity hike from a daily 1.5 lakh cassettes now to two lakhs was to be effected by September, the manpower shedding would start mainly through counselling by this fiscal. However, a separation scheme was also not ruled out.

The company has recently acquired the Punjabl label, ARI Music, which has a good catalogue of Punjabi devotional music. It had bought the rights for seven A. R. Ratnam Tamil movies and three of his Telugu films.

GCIL, which logged a turnover of Rs. 53 crores in the first four months of 2000-01 (Rs. 37 crores), was pinning hopes on the release of the movie Mohabbatein, featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.