Cutting debt biggest task for new CCD CEO Hegde – Times of India

BENGALURU: Malavika Hegde, the new CEO of Coffee Day Enterprises, will have her work cut out as she steps into the shoes of her deceased husband. That would include reducing debt, managing lenders, and ensuring continuity of operations.
People who have worked with Hegde say she is a straight talker, someone who acknowledges the perils the company is in, and wants to clear the mess for the sake of her two sons. “She wants to keep the business running in this extremely difficult environment and make sure that the lenders are paid by selling the non-core operations,” a person said.
Hegde has been a director at CDEL, but now she will have to get into the daily operations. Her biggest task would be to reduce the huge debt, which stood at Rs 3,200 crore at the end of July. That will help the business stay afloat. The company is trying to reduce debt to below Rs 1,000 crore. That level of debt is seen to be manageable as the sector emerges out of the pandemic, which put huge pressure on the company’s cafe and vending machine businesses.
CDEL was not available for a comment on this story.
The route to reduce the debt involves a payment of Rs 500-700 crore from private equity giant Blackstone as the final tranche from the sale of Tanglin Realty, which owned the Global Tech Village on the outskirts of Bengaluru. The decision to sell its vending machines unit to the Tatas has hit a roadblock on account of the pandemic. The deal is pegged at about Rs 600 crore.