Corporate executives shift base abroad

Indian businesses are keen to expand overseas, and it's a common phenomenon these days. Business owners are increasingly seeing merit in supervising them by being close to these new markets. This opens up alternative residency routes, which is an advantage when it comes to current geopolitical and macroeconomic instabilities.

In 2013, Apollo Tyres Vice Chairman and MD Neeraj Kanwar moved to London when the company wanted to acquire American firm Cooper Tires. Overseeing global strategic operations from there has helped de-risk the business and worked out as an alternative residence for Kanwar. If I had stayed in India, I would have been an Indian company looking at only the Indian market. Today, when India is facing challenges on inflation and oil prices, Europe is also facing challenges, but has been a larger profit pool for the company, says 51-year-old Kanwar.

In 2015, Eicher Motors MD and CEO Siddhartha Lal moved to London in order to be close to Royal Enfield's new R&D centre in Leicestershire.

In London, Hero Cycles Chairman and MD Pankaj Munjal focuses on the European e-bike market for nine months a year.

Adar Poonawalla, the Serum Institute of India CEO, shuttles between London and Pune, while Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra is known to spend much of his time abroad. Business Today asked their questions about their preference to stay in another country, but they were unanswered.

Clint Khan, the director of Y-Axis Middle East DMCC, an immigration and visa consultant services company, points out that there are more businesses in India that are looking for bigger markets abroad. He says that the days when people wanted to expand operations because they just want to do a business are gone. Most business professionals now want a residency as well.

As experts say, for many successful corporate executives - especially those who are 45 -- 50 years olds - the need to shift base abroad is driven by the thought about their children's future and the need to give them a career boost. They say they ve professionally grown as much as possible in India and cannot grow anymore and that they would like to look at getting residencies done for their children, says Khan. As a resident, the child can bypass the work permit-related hassles that they would have to go through as a foreign student.

For instance, Nysa Global Managing Director Pankaj Joshi, who advises clients on expanding their global footprints, says he wants their child to go abroad for higher studies, but they don't want him or her to go through the struggles of finding jobs that sponsor a work visa. Joshi says that once the children settle there, the families want to go.

Navnit Singh, who is the chairman of the Regional Managing Director of Korn Ferry International for India, affirms that a lot of senior executives would like to get transferred to global locations, preferably the US, where their children are studying or settled.