Ramesh Tainwala is over the moon. And why won’t he be. The chief executive of luggage maker Samsonite has bought another prominent maker of suitcases, Tumi Holdings Inc., to complete a strategy to diversify.
For Tainwala, the Tumi acquisition is the most important event in his working life. “We have been flirting with Tumi for almost 15 years and it has taken a lot of patience and perseverance and for Tumi to be coming home, as we call it, it is like a dream come true,” Tainwala was quoted as saying in The Times.
Tainwala said the $1.8 billion acquisition of high-end luggage maker Tumi will allow Samsonite to expand in the premium business travel bags segment, and will help South Plainfield, N.J.-based Tumi become more global.
The report in The Times said for Tainwala there is the added satisfaction that the Tumi deal cements a strategy that he first trialled while running Samsonite’s Indian division and then later its Asia-Pacific region.
The executive, who is one of five children born in Ranchi, says that he realised pretty quickly in the early 2000s that while “we were always very proud of what we were doing, we had almost maxed out the opportunity with Samsonite”.
Tainwala is in this business not for money but for the love and passion for his job.
“If money motivated me I would not be doing this job at Samsonite. If I had continued to run my own business in India I would have made tonnes more money, but I love this job and I am very passionate about it.”
Tainwala believes that the expansion strategy will help Samsonite to reach its target of doubling sales to $5 billion and reaching $1 billion of profits by 2020.
Some still question if Samsonite can sustain the $1.8 billion of debt it is raising to fund the Tumi acquisition. Tainwala, a management graduate from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, says this is a false concern.
“The debt raised (before the recession) created no assets for the company; that was just money that went to the previous lot of shareholders. With Tumi we are creating earnings and an asset,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
Ramesh Tainwala is one of the few in the elite club of Indian-origin CEO with global positions.
