THE MAN WITH THE IRON FIST

The pandemic led to an existential crisis for Ramkrishna Forgings and its MD, Naresh Jalan. But Jalan's quick thinking and adaptability brought the company around

- Ashish Rukhaiyar

FIVE YEARS AGO Ramkrishna Forgings Limited (RKFL) found itself navigating a challenging business landscape. Things got worse when the pandemic struck, compelling the founders and the leadership team to reassess their strategies. What precisely led to this downturn? The company's financials paint a vivid picture of the existential crisis. From a robust bottom line of ₹120.11 crore in FY19, RKFL witnessed a stark decline to ₹9.70 crore in FY20, followed by a modest recovery to ₹20.67 crore in FY21.

"The transition of Ramkrishna Forgings started four-five years ago. There are two RKFLS actually-one pre-pandemic and the other one post-pandemic. RKFL had a different kind of working style post the pandemic," says Naresh Jalan, 47, Managing Director of RKFL, who has emerged as the winner in the Emerging Companies category of the BT-PwC India's Best CEOs ranking.

"We went through one of the toughest times of our careers. The pandemic brought to light that a company cannot grow with debt and that is one thing we changed in the post-pandemic era. We decided that the firm has to grow but will grow with free cash flow and only through what we earn rather than growing with debt," he adds.

This assumes significance as the company had historically grown on the basis of debt. But as soon as the company pivoted to a completely new strategy, the financials started to look up. In FY22, the profits jumped to ₹198.03 crore, with the last fiscal-FY23-registering a net profit of ₹248.11 crore.