Pradip Dayanand Kothari has stepped down as Chairman and Director of the Chennai-based Kothari Industrial Corporation Ltd, effective February 18.
“As I enter the later stages of my career, I have come to recognise that the demands of my role, while rewarding, are becoming increasingly challenging to balance with my personal health and well being,” he said in a letter to the company.
On July 29, 2024, the company approved a preferential issue of up to 3 crore fully paid-up equity shares of face value of ₹5 each on preferential basis, representing 70.62 per cent of the expanded share capital, at a price of ₹14.33 per fully paid-up equity share (preferential issue) for a consideration aggregating to ₹42.99 crore to industrialist J Rafiq Ahmed.
In August 2024, Ahmed, who was once in the steel business, became the promoter of KICL, a part of the DC Kothari group. He came on board KICL in 2014 as an investor when the company was not doing well; further on, he became its Managing Director.
KICL, incorporated on July 1, 1970 as Kothari (Madras) Ltd, was mainly engaged in manufacturing and trading fertilisers, having more than seven decades of experience in the manufacture and marketing of fertilisers, trading of NPK mixtures (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), and distributing plant protection chemicals, micro nutrients and growth promoters.