Brands
Citi names Behzad Merchant to steer business execution in India
MUMBAI: Citi is tightening its execution engine in India. The bank has appointed Behzad Merchant as business execution lead for India, with additional oversight for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as it sharpens focus on governance, risk and regulatory delivery in a complex market.
Merchant will report to Varittha Prichapanich, business execution lead for Asia South, with a matrix line to K Balasubramanian, chief executive of Citi India and banking head for the Indian subcontinent. His brief spans strategic and business-critical initiatives, regulatory programmes, and efforts to streamline governance while reinforcing the bank’s risk and controls framework.
Balasubramanian says the appointment underlines Citi’s push for disciplined risk management and strong execution across its India franchise. Merchant’s familiarity with Citi and leadership experience, he adds, should help balance growth ambitions with tight operational controls.
Prichapanich describes Merchant as combining operational depth, technology expertise and a risk mindset suited to a fast-changing environment. His regional understanding and execution focus are expected to bolster governance and delivery across the subcontinent.
Merchant brings more than 25 years of experience across banking, operations, technology and controls. He moves into the role from Citi’s Asia South technology controls team, where he worked on key markets including India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Before that, he spent two and a half years at JPMorgan as business risk and controls lead for the payments business in Asia, overseeing regional frameworks and serving as India site lead for global payments risk and controls.
His history with Citi runs deep. Merchant previously spent nearly two decades at the bank in senior roles spanning operations, technology and control functions. A commerce graduate and an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, he blends institutional memory with technical grounding.
For Citi, the message is clear. In an era of tighter rules and thinner margins, execution is strategy. And in India’s high-stakes banking market, the winners will be those who control the risks as tightly as they chase the returns.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
