Saregama CEO Apurv Nagpal Resigns

RPG Group owned music company Saregama's CEO Apurv Nagpal has put in his papers, as per a disclosure to the stock market. Essentially a marketing personnel who spent almost 15 years with various FMCG and beverage firms, he had joined Saregama as the CEO in January 2009.

Saregama India Ltd has disclosed that in a board meeting held on April 9, the directors accepted his resignation with immediate effect and in the same meeting, G B Aayeer has been appointed as a 'manager' of the company (we assume the company means the managing director). Aayeer has been serving as the CFO and compliance officer at Saregama.

During Nagpal's tenure, Saregama saw its consolidated revenues rise from Rs 132 crore with net loss of Rs 8.1 crore during FY09 to revenues of Rs 143 crore with net loss of Rs 13.35 crore in FY11. At a standalone level, revenues for the quarter ended December 31, 2011 stood at Rs 40 crore with net profit of Rs 2.82 crore.

Three fourth of the revenues for Q3 FY12 was generated from its core business of music while the rest was from film and television division. Music continues to remain the mainstay in terms of bottomline even as film and TV serials business is into losses. When Nagpal had joined as much as 90 per cent of the revenues was churned out of music business.

Before Saregama, Nagpal was marketing director with SAB-Miller. Prior to that the IIM- Ahmedabad grad has also worked with Reckitt Benckiser, BAT and P&G.

Nagpal told Medianama he plans to take some time off to complete his book and spend time with his kids and family.

Besides scaling up business presence in non music category, under his leadership, Saregama also bet on new media with an investment in Bangalore-based digital entertainment startup Timbe Media. Timbre had recently collaborated with Saregama to launch 10 music channels on Vodafone under the brand name Vodafone WorldSpace Radio.

Co-founded by former executives of now bankrupt satellite radio firm WorldSpace, Timbre Media holds the exclusive right to use the brand name WorldSpace Radio in India.