The acquisition discussion changed when we counted what came next

The acquisition paper began with a price of ₹58 crore. The discussion became more useful when finance and operations added what we would need to spend after owning the business. A further ₹7.4 crore estimated remediation and integration requirement changed the commitment we were evaluating. I had supported investigating the opportunity, but I did not want the effort already spent on it to become an argument for proceeding. We declined the transaction after ₹42 lakh of due diligence.

I was born in 1973 and grew up in Aizawl. I completed production engineering at Belqavi Engineering College in May 1995 and joined Kelvashi Metal Products that July. The company employed eighty-five people and recorded ₹12.3 crore revenue in FY 1995. I worked in a seven-person production-engineering group without independent spending authority. The early work taught me to follow a design into the workshop and examine the preparation, handling and rework that a drawing alone did not describe. A technically possible product could still be difficult to make repeatedly at the promised cost.

In October 2001 I became operations manager at Kelvashi. The business then employed 190 people and recorded ₹39 crore revenue in FY 2001. I led fifty-four colleagues through three supervisors, with ₹7.6 crore annual operating expense and ₹80 lakh approved capital expenditure. The role connected production choices to the customer's delivery expectation. I learned to distinguish a machine's nominal capability from the capacity available after changeovers, maintenance and the mix of orders actually accepted. The difficult conversations were often about promises made before the workshop had been asked what they required.

I moved to Norzemi Fabrication Works as general manager in April 2008. The regional business employed 260 people and recorded ₹77 crore revenue in FY 2008. I led five functional heads, with responsibility for the business result and a ₹4.2 crore approved capital programme. I completed a part-time MBA at Orzheni Management Institute in November 2010 while remaining employed. General management made me examine the commercial reasons behind the production mix instead of treating the order book as an instruction that arrived from elsewhere. Product variety, customer terms and investment choices belonged in one account.

In September 2015 I joined Vezqari as COO. It employed 410 people and recorded ₹148 crore revenue in FY 2015. I led 290 operations colleagues through four managers, with ₹61 crore annual operations expense and ₹4.8 crore approved capital expenditure. The two-site setting required decisions about what to duplicate, what to specialise and how a disruption at one site would affect the other. I became less comfortable with plans that described spare capacity without checking whether the people, tooling and material needed to use it could move together.

The board appointed me CEO in January 2021 and I became an executive director at the same time. I now have seven executive direct reports and responsibility for the company's result, with 560 employees, ₹214 crore revenue and ₹17.8 crore operating profit in FY 2026. A promoter family owns 42%, an employee trust 18% and a regional industrial investor 40%; I hold no personal equity. Asha Merzhali is non-executive chair and Rohit Nalqeri is CFO. The ₹14.6 crore annual capital envelope is approved by the board, rather than treated as an unrestricted personal spending authority.

The acquisition we declined was one of several choices that made growth more selective. We withdrew a custom-cover family despite its ₹12.4 crore historical annual sales, funded ₹1.3 crore of transition and redeployed fourteen employees. We rejected a proposed exclusive capacity arrangement and accepted a smaller non-exclusive order commitment. During flood disruption, we spent ₹2.6 crore on recovery while retaining the sixteen orders that required revised dates in the account. Each choice had a cost that an attractive growth headline could have hidden.

I want a possible non-executive role to draw on that experience without exporting my company's answers to another business. My current directorship is executive, not independent. I registered with the IICA independent directors databank in 2024 and passed the proficiency assessment in February 2025 within this fictional career. That preparation does not settle the suitability of another appointment. Eighteen provisional days would be additional to my employment duties, and the board, my employer and I would need to examine commercial relationships and the real calendar before proceeding.

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