Hyderabad, August 12: In a bid to stem the rot and set the house in order, chairman of Hyderabad-based SOL Pharmaceuticals Ltd C Chandrasekara Reddy has taken over the complete management of the company divesting son-in-law T Uttam Reddy of the managing director's responsibilities.

The decision was ratified at the company's board meeting last week as part of the massive internal restructuring exercise following the setbacks suffered by the company over the last year.

Confirming the move, Chandrasekara Reddy told The Financial Express that he had decided to "take over the active reins" considering the company was going through a financial crisis. "Now that I have taken over the managing director's post also, I want to concentrate on the day-to-day management of the company and the restructuring plan", he said declining to divulge any details.

The Rs 200-crore pharmaceutical company, till recently a big name in the formulations market, has been in the news of late following reports of it selling off most of its brands and retrenching close to 1,000 employees in all departments.

When contacted, Uttam Reddy said he would still continue to be on the board of the company though he may not be involved in its day-to-day activities. "There is not much work for two people with the chairman taking over most of the work", he said indicating he would now concentrate on the family's construction business.

However, both denied there was any truth in the reports that the company had sold off its brands other than those already hived off to Dr Reddy's Lab. Considering the present market situation, SOL Pharma has only assigned most of its brands to other companies for manufacturing and distribution. SOL Pharma would be paid a royalty of 10 per cent of the sales by these companies instead while legally all the formulations brands so assigned still belong to it, Uttam Reddy stressed.

As for the confusion regarding SOL Healthcare and Pharma Ltd, he denied SOL Pharma had anything to do with it anymore after the company was sold off to a group of NRI doctors and others last year. The new owners of the company, which was set up to start a chain of pharmaceutical shops originally, have permission to use our name for a period of one year.

In fact, the name is set to be changed within a matter of two months or so, he said. Stressing that there was absolutely no truth in the reports that the company had sold off its brands, the chairman and managing director said the financial institutions had taken an undertaking from SOL Pharma that they would be informed of any such moves in advance.

While the company has retrenched nearly 1,000 employees in order to cut overheads, it is now reworking its capacities in the bulk drugs segment where it is still a name to reckon with.

It entered the high value segment nearly two years ago with a wide range of new products like cefaclor, pentoxifylline, astemizole, where it managed considerable clout in the market.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.