The Khaitans have decided to step down from the board of directors of Eveready Industries India Ltd.

The resignation of Aditya and Amritanshu Khairan – the uncle-nephew duo that ran the country’s largest dry cell battery maker – came just three days after the Burman family of Dabur decided to assume control of Eveready.

The development caps a tumultuous phase in the annals of Williamson Magor Group founded by late Brij Mohan Khaitan.

The Burman family holds a 19.84 per cent stake in Eveready through five group entities and has already announced an open offer to to acquire another 26 per cent at Rs 320 a share.

On Thursday, the Eveready stock closed at Rs 361 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, up 3.38 per cent. The Burmans have indicated that they could raise the open offer price which provides no incentive to investors to offload their shares.

The Khaitans hold just 4.84 per cent in the company after creditors sold their pledged shares to recover loans.

The Eveready board, which met today also to take note of the open offer by the Burmans, requested Suvomoy Saha, joint managing director of Eveready, to discharge the duty of the managing director till such time the nomination and the remuneration committee of the board formally recommends his elevation.

In his letter to the board, Amritanshu Khaitan hinted that the Khaitans would continue to remain invested in the company.

In an interview with The Telegraph on Tuesday, Mohit Burman, vice chairman of Dabur, had offered no assurance that Khaitans would be permitted to retain their board positions and continue as a co-promoter after the Burmans assume control.

The Burmans declined to comment on the latest development.

“As the largest shareholders of the company, the Burman family have expressed their interest to take management control of your company and give new leadership and direction to the company, it would be appropriate for me to step down from the board,” Khaitan wrote.

Amritanshu joined the board in 2011 and became the MD after the untimely death of his father Deepak Khaitan, the elder son of Brij Mohan, in 2015.

Eveready came into the fold of the Khaitan-led WM Group in 1993 when Brij Mohan pipped the Wadias of Bombay Dyeing to acquire the dry cell battery business from Union Carbide for Rs 290 crore, which qualified as the largest corporate takeover in India till then.

Since the acquisition, Khaitans had always been represented on the board till this afternoon.

The troubles for the Khaitans began with an impetuous decision to bail out McNally Bharat India Ltd, the group’s ailing engineering outfit. The family borrowed heavily and pledged their shares in Eveready and tea planter McLeod Russel India Ltd as collateral.

A series of defaults from 2019 onwards saw creditors invoking the pledged shares taking advantage of rising stock prices as the Burmans seized the opportunity to pick up Eveready shares.

“We have overcome challenging times and I am stepping down from the board on a strong footing, with the company having achieved its highest ever operating profit last year, despite the challenges of Covid-19. Going forward, I hope the new leadership will deliver greater success in terms of higher top line and bottom line growth for your company,” Amritanshu Khaitan said in his letter.

“I will continue to be a long term shareholder in the company and participate in the future growth of the company,” he added, indicating the family's intention to stay on as shareholders.