His mobile rang just as he stepped into the lobby of a Delhi-based five-star hotel. ''I am already there,'' said Vikram Singh, recognising the number on his Nokia 3410. The caller was Satish Mehra, Chairman of Prime Motors. Singh, only 38, was the CEO of a small, but successful engineering firm. He was now being wooed by Mehra to head Prime Motors.

It wasn't the case of simple head hunting, though. Prime was a motorbike company that was in big trouble. Over the last five years, the company's marketshare in motorcycles had crashed from 12 per cent to 2 per cent. The turnover, too, had dropped from Rs 800 crore to Rs 150 crore. Prime had accumulated losses of more than Rs 300 crore, and a huge workforce, which it had been unable to trim as the business shrunk. Prime's incumbent CEO was leaving the company for ''personal reasons'', and the board of directors was desperate to get a replacement.

''I trust you've gone through the dossier my office sent you last week,'' Mehra said, shaking hands with Singh.

''But I was curious about one thing...'' Singh said, pausing for Mehra to take the cue.

''Why we are hiring a young CEO who is not even from the two-wheeler industry?'' Mehra completed the sentence for Singh.

''Exactly. And as I understand, you do have family members on the board, waiting in the wings,'' Singh pointed out.

''Yes, but Nikhil Gupta-the heir-in-line-is only 23. The situation at Prime requires more mature handling. It will be too much for Nikhil to handle,'' said Mehra. ''To answer the question ''why you?'' we are looking for a turnaround CEO...somebody who can put the company back on course and then make way for Nikhil in another four years. And as I understand, you are comfortable with this kind of an arrangement.''

''Yes, as you can see, if I manage a turnaround at Prime, then my next stop will be one of the BT-20 companies,'' Singh said, making no effort to camouflage his ambitions.

''I have a suggestion. Come over to our plant this weekend, take a tour of the facility, meet some key executives and labour leaders, and then in another three months come on board,'' Mehra said.

''Sounds like a workable plan to me,'' Singh said.

Things went as scheduled. Singh flew down to Prime's Bhopal facility, met senior execs, and by the time he boarded the plane back to Delhi, he had decided to join Prime.

Into the first week at his new job, Singh had a clear picture of Prime's problems. All of that stemmed from just one issue: a poor product portfolio. Prime had lost out in the great shift from two-stroke to four-stroke bikes. It had been over-dependent on its Japanese partner and had not bothered to build its own R&D. Now with the partner turning into a competitor, Prime's offerings looked like rejects from its erstwhile partner's stable.

At his first board meeting, Singh laid out an action plan for Prime. ''My priorities,'' he told the board of eight, ''are simple. First of all, I want to stem the losses at Prime. Then, I want to launch motorcycles that are contemporary in both technology and styling. But there are some difficult measures that I will need to take,'' he warned.

''That's why we got you here,'' Mehra said, speaking for the board.

''First of all, we need to rightsize our workforce. We need to reduce headcount from 500 to about 200. Then, we have a new ancillary division, which is bleeding us, not just because it is not producing much, but also because it was funded with expensive debt. I suggest we load most of our debt onto this company and sell it to an ancillary major for a nominal amount, with the guarantee that we will continue to buy from it, but at competitive rates.

"Then," Singh continued, "we need to convince our institutional investors to convert the remaining part of the debt into equity. Once we do all this, we should be on our way to recovery,'' Singh asserted.

''We've tried VRS earlier but it doesn't work,'' Girish Agarwal, a promoter-director pointed out.

''I am aware of that. Our VRS wasn't lucrative enough. We should double that sum to Rs 5 lakh to be paid over five years,'' Singh said.

''That's Rs 15 crore we are talking about,'' Nikhil Gupta cried. ''We can't afford that.''

''If you calculate our annual savings and other indirect benefits, it is more than worth it,'' Singh argued. ''Of course, the real gains will accrue when the company increases its profits on this headcount.''

After much haggling, Singh managed to get the board to agree to his proposals. But as he would discover soon, it wasn't a complete buy-in.

The first big sign of a clash came three months later after Singh returned from a meeting with institutional shareholders. The FIs had agreed to convert three-fourths of their loan into equity and defer interest on the rest. Singh thought that was his first big victory. But Gupta and Agarwal were furious.

''At the current stock price, such a conversion would lower the family's holdings to less than 26 per cent. We can't agree to that,'' Gupta said.

''But we are hardly in a position to bargain,'' Singh pointed out. What's our choice? I want to use whatever little money that we have to get a technical licence for two new four-stroke models, without which we will continue to slide.''

That wasn't the only resistance Singh faced. The unions were opposed to a sell-off of the ancillary division. The promoters wanted the division to be spun off into a JV, with majority control. However, the fact was that Singh desperately needed cash to import CKD kits once the agreement with the new partner was sealed. Yet, the promoters wouldn't ok the sell-off.

Frustrated, Singh decided to have a chat with Mehra. ''As you probably have noticed, I am not making much headway here,'' Singh said once Mehra got over the prelims. ''I know it's only been five months since I got here, but what worries me is the lack of cooperation from the promoters. I don't see that improving any time soon.''

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