Worked 15 hrs a day, slept on office table also at L&T: Naik

MUMBAI: L &T chairman emeritus A M Naik on Friday said he worked 15 hours a day and slept on the office table after long days at work, as he built the engineering giant in over five decades.

In remarks that come amid an uproar caused by NR Narayana Murthy’s suggestion asking youngsters to put in 70 hours of work per week to build the nation, Naik said after putting in 15 hours a day at work, he used to go back home and think about L&T for another one hour.

Naik credited former Defence Minister George Fernandes for helping save L&T during a corporate takeover battle mounted by the Birlas, and added that the politician’s socialist leanings made him a big believer in not letting a company go into the hands of a big business house. Reminiscing about his career, starting from how he joined the company, Naik said he travelled through the night for early morning meetings and spoke about one such meeting in Germany for which he travelled through the night from neighbouring Poland in a car as a 34-year-old.

“When I was a student, I was looking at joining a company which of course gives me an opportunity for technology innovation and engineering excellence, but in parallel, it gives me a platform on a wider scale to help build our nation,’’ Naik said, speaking at an event here.

Naik, who stepped down from being the executive chairman of L &T in 2017, also mentioned about certain long days at work which ended well past midnight and his preference to sleep on the office tables on such nights.

In the 20 years that he was at the helm, the market capitalisation of L &T shot up by 130 times to over Rs 5 lakh crore from Rs 4,000 crore, Naik said.