ABCL, Aaj Kal

It seems the only thing ABCL-2 is scared of is ABCL-1.

In the mid nineties, there was nothing the entertainment industry looked more to for direction than Amitabh Bachchan’s company. It was ambitious and savvy, and had more professionally qualified people than the rest. Yet, when ABCL’s drive to corporatise the industry unravelled and the company was declared sick, few were surprised. What they had seen of the organised method practised at ABCL didn’t impress them much. In fact, the company became a cautionary tale for nearly a decade. And no one was more chastened by the experience than the man at the top. Which explains why AB Corporation today is quiet, small, and controlled by family.

During its most glorious days, when cash flowed and Bollywood seemed ripe for picking, ABCL was involved in film production, events, distribution, audio, talent management and television marketing. Now it only produces, that too, rarely, and with partners. Sunil Doshi, who created the original business plan for ABCL and left soon after he hired a CEO and the top management team, said that he had envisioned the whole thing differently.

Amitabh Bachchan, Doshi says, “was on a sabbatical in New York (in the early 1990s), where he was setting up TV Asia”. He saw how the entertainment and media sectors were corporatised, and returned to India with a mind to professionalise his industry.

“I was with Saraswati Audio Visuals (a company owned by Jaya Bachchan) at the time, and AB gave me his thoughts on the sort of company he had in mind.” They soon went about implementing the first stage—searching for the management team. “You go by feeling on these things,” Doshi says. “We looked at a few candidates, including Pradeep Guha, the director of publishing at Bennett, Coleman & Co. But Sanjiv Gupta, who was in charge of media buying at Levers—I had a good feeling about him.”

Doshi, who had Bachchan’s ear, had a steady process in mind. He saw Gupta leading the company as a vice-president, not as the occupant of the top slot as CEO. But the board—comprising Amitabh, Jaya, Ajitabh Bachchan, Surinder Kapoor and Chakor Doshi of Walchand Industries—thought differently, and Gupta was appointed in early 1995. “I never thought he would be CEO immediately. I think it was a disaster. The team and the CEO were the biggest mistake.”

Doshi immediately fell out with Gupta, which he attributes to their management styles and temperaments. He eventually left the company in 2006. “I didn’t think the business plan would be carried out the way I wanted,” he says, “I thought we needed a profit centre head first, not cost centre heads.”

During ABCL’s quick decline and after its bankruptcy, the popular view was that the company’s problems centred around the way it was run, as well as its priorities. In a number of interviews, senior executives and a general manager agreed that the company spread its resources too thin (“like a layer of butter you couldn’t taste,” one said), but there was no common consensus on management.

Kallol Sen, who handled the events division until his departure in February 1997, says that the company received a lot of “negative publicity because it was a frontrunner”. Sen, who is now a director of low-cost films, such as Kabhi Socha Na Tha and Of Yin And Yang, says that there was bound to be criticism because of the systems the company hoped to introduce. “Things like the cheque-oriented system, or budget planning, or cash flow. It was like teaching Greek to people here.” But he says that the company was managed well. “It would go through things with due diligence. Perhaps what it required was better financial planning.”

At one point, ABCL was Rs 90 crore in debt—the result of a culture of excess that some say still persists in the industry. In 1999, two years after the management team left, it was declared sick by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction. In 2005, it was deemed ‘no longer sick’ after the dues had been paid. What followed was a rebranding, an effective way of signalling a break with the past. A new low-profile CEO was named (Wing Commander Ramesh Pulapaka), a threadbare staff retained, and the company focused on production. Paa is the company’s first release since Family: Ties of Blood, a 2006 drama directed by Ramkumar Santoshi. Bachchan maintains that the model ABCL strived to create now proliferates in the film industry in firms such as UTV, Yash Raj Films and other studios. But his own experience, some insiders say, persuaded him to believe that the set of MBAs he hired did not understand the industry.

Other senior executives were also of the opinion that Bachchan’s vision was undone by the people he had selected. Lakshmanan Narayan joined ABCL as head of the audio division, and left one year later when he saw “mismanagement and irrational decisions”. Between 1 April 1995 and 1 April 1996, he says, employee count went from just 10 to 120. “That year, we were masters of the universe,” Narayan says. “Everybody in the industry wanted a meeting with us. But you know, a lot of people drank their own Kool-Aid. There was this thinking that ‘let’s grab everything we get’.”

“I think his professionalism was the reason the whole idea resonated with Bachchan,” says Narayan, “He wanted everything orchestrated. He was not comfortable with ambiguities.” But professionalism, some believed, seemed to come only from Bachchan.

The money that flowed out of the company came with no strings. Bachchan gave them free reign, and was hesitant to interfere even when things went wrong, says Doshi. “He was worried that he would be accused of interference.” Outside the company, there were mutters of large expense accounts and huge restaurant bills. But Sen defends the expenses: “When you have meetings, where else can you take clients? You have to take them to hotels, not dhabas.”

A former senior executive who wished to remain anonymous says that the unprofessional culture predominant at ABCL was started by those at the very top. “It was interesting as a vision on paper, but in reality, if Jaya Bachchan would like someone, we’d be like ‘let’s sign him on’.” The executive also thinks that the CEO became the focus of the decision-making process, and this had adverse effects. “There was a point when everyone in Bollywood (Aamir Khan and Suneil Shetty, too, were represented by ABCL) came to meet Sanjiv Gupta. There was a concentration of power. He became a filmi kind of guy. What would have made things better is if the decision-making process was more democratic.”

“They were tie-wallahs trying to apply what they knew to film,” says trade analyst Komal Nahata. “They didn’t understand that this was a very typical business. They backed the wrong projects. For example, they were making a film with Mukul Dev as hero. He was never meant to be a hero and the film wasn’t released. Then this other time I wrote a bad review. They invited me to their office where they showed me figures indicating that collections had picked up on Sunday. I told them, “You didn’t know that Sunday collections always pick up?’ They were crestfallen.”

The change the company has gone through makes its previous avatar look so bad that people wonder how that kind of mess was ever allowed to happen. “Picking Gupta was a mistake,” Doshi says, “but there were not enough people to choose from at the time. Now Abhishek is helping his father. And they’re doing well in a small way. It’s a very slow, steady, gradual way of doing things. They are no longer into isms, into largest, biggest, tallest. Now it’ll be known for the work it does.”

The company recently signalled its intention to ratchet up production. Besides Paa, AB Corp produced a Marathi film, Vihir, and also signed on to create a film that will be directed by Prabhu Deva. In addition, it recently announced that it would create merchandise for Paa. The company is taking the slow route. Mr Amitabh Bachchan, it appears, has learnt to wait.

About The Author

Rahul Bhatia