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N Sankar, Chairman of The Sanmar Group and founder of Sanmar Engineering, spoke to V Ramnarayan of Matrix about the continuous success story of the last 35 years. Excerpts:
The early days
Sanmar Engineering grew out of Durametallic India, our first joint venture, with Durametallic Corporation, USA.
It all started with a phone call to me from my father KS Narayanan, then Managing Director of the India Cements Limited sometime in 1971. He said to me that we could not afford to let people like SR Seshadri go. The maintenance engineer in Chemplast had suffered a tragic bereavement. His wife had died in a car crash and he could no longer continue in Mettur. He wanted to be with his children studying in Madras, so he was about to join SPIC, the petrochemicals major at Madras.
We had no operation in the city, and our General Manager S Ramaswamy had no choice but to accept his resignation. Father said I must start a venture in Madras for us to continue to have Sesh’s services. He also advised Sesh not to leave. Sesh had enormous respect for Father. So it was that we both sat in my room trying to find a project for him. My conditions for the project were simple. We didn’t have much money, so it had to be a low-capital project. It had to be a high tech product, not made in India, and it must involve foreign collaboration, providing an opportunity to travel, meet people, grow more businesses. I preferred an American partner, as I had studied in the US and was familiar with the systems there.
Choice of mechanical seals
Out of the blue, he said, “Why don’t we make mechanical seals?” I didn’t know what a mechanical seal was. Sesh asked me, “Don’t you know Crane seals?” Those days Crane was synonymous with mechanical seals in India, like Xerox is for photocopiers. At Chemplast we bought imported mechanical seals and I agreed with Sesh’s choice of product. We then wrote a letter—one of the better letters I have drafted—to a number of JV partner prospects, each of them a world leader. John Crane had a UK JV partner in Tube Investments and marketed their product in India through Tube Investments India. When I asked MV Arunachalam of their group if I could approach John Crane, he wished me luck.