Dhiren Ponnusamy is appointed to the post of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Medine Ltd; assuming office as from 1st July 2021. His appointment was ratified by the Group’s Board of Directors on 25th June. Prior to this appointment, Dhiren Ponnusamy was Medine Group’s Chief Operating Officer (COO).

“The Board of Directors of Medine Limited wishes to inform its shareholders and the public in general of the appointment of Mr Dhiren Ponnusamy as Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Company effective the 1st of July 2021.” – such is the announcement made by the Group’s Board of Directors through a communiqué issued on 25th June, to announce the appointment of the Group’s new CEO.

Dhiren Ponnusamy is married and father of two children. Further to his secondary studies at Royal College Curepipe, he obtained a BCS (Hons) in Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science and is a certified financial expert of CFA Institute. Before joining the Medine group, he worked 12 years at Standard Chartered Bank, evolving over the years across different branches of the banking group - in South Korea, Singapore, Philippines, crowning consistent progress with his appointment as the Managing Director of the London Head Office of Standard Chartered Group Plc.

After more than 20 years spent overseas, Dhiren Ponnusamy joined Medine as the Group’s COO in January 2018, bringing in his solid experience in strategic planning, finance and performance management. In April 2020, with the support of the Executive Committee, composed of René Leclézio, Chairman of the Board of Directors and its Vice-president, Jacques Li Wan Po, Dhiren Ponnusamy took up the leadership of the Group as its Acting CEO.

Commenting Dhiren’s appointment as the Group’s CEO, René Leclézio points out: “We are delighted finally to be able to announce Dhiren’s nomination as CEO of Medine. He has effectively been doing the job for over a year, but Covid-19 managed to derail our best laid plans. He and his team have worked tirelessly during these extremely trying times, and in a relatively short time Dhiren was able to consolidate the Group’s finances, negotiate successfully with our bankers and bond holders, and federate the staff behind a vision which is now undeniably shared between the Board and Management. I wish him a productive tenure as CEO, and we should look forward to many profitable years for Medine.’’

Securing Medine’s financial stability

Since 2020, and within the framework of his attributions as the Group’s Acting CEO, Dhiren Ponnusamy took up the lead for the implementation of Medine’s new strategic orientation, with the purpose of ensuring the Group’s sustainable profitability.

It’s more than one year now that, against the odds of the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, Dhiren and Medine’s top Management team have been tackling the implementation of significant measures to re-engineer the Group’s operational structure, with the view to create a leaner model, streamline it for enhanced agility, and providing Medine’s teams with a clear direction to achieve enhanced performance efficiency.

In this context, a drastic cost cut policy has been initiated through the Group, in order to guarantee its short and long-term sustainability and to generate more efficiency in costs and in operations.

Over the recent months, under Dhiren’s drive, besides restructuring the Group and its teams towards achieving a leaner operational model, Medine embarked on a debt restructuring strategy, targeting to bring it down to Rs 4 billion in the medium term, and to achieve a sustainable Earning Per Share of Rs4.

Medine’s five departments (Agriculture, Property, Casela, Education, Sports & Hospitality) are henceforth focusing on their core business activities as all support functions have been centralised. With a leaner exploitation model and increased synergies amidst teams, this is not only producing efficiency gains but also notably improving productivity.

The results of the in-depth work undertaken are already bearing a positive impact on operations, as attested by the latest financial results published by Medine at 30th March 2021. Indeed, except for the leisure sector whose operations have suffered the blow of the pandemic, the rest of Medine’s activities record operational profits.

Dhiren Ponnusamy’s new appointment naturally confirms his leading role at Medine’s head, a Group which is listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius and is fundamentally committed to the sustainable development of the West coast of Mauritius and the promotion of Mauritian talents.

Expressing himself in reaction to his appointment, Dhiren said:” I wish to thank Medine’s Board of Directors and in particular its Chairman, René Leclézio, to whom I am extremely grateful for the support he granted me. I am greatly honoured by the trust vested in me by the Board in appointing me CEO of the Group. My warm thanks also to the Management and all teams of Medine for their sustained efforts and their unfailing commitment over the past months; without them we could not have gone through these quite challenging times. The three years gone by have allowed me to understand the specificities of Medine group, its diverse activities, its exceptional assets and potential. It is also composed of a talented team and, with the help of all, together we will keep enhancing this century-old group which has many beautiful years lie ahead.”