Several Indian managers have quit India's largest electronics company, LG, in the past five months after theSouth Korean company brought in expats at key positions in India, a former senior manager said Sunday.

The manager, on conditions of anonymity because of clauses in his contract with LG, said"The role of 15 senior managers were diminished when Koreans were sent from Seoul. Out of the 15, 10 were business heads in the company's crack team of 20 elite managers and five were branch heads of high-revenue generating territories. Most of these executives used to previously report directly to the CEO and COO of LG."

But earlier this year, confronted by slowing sales growth, the company, which has often been described as the talent factory of the consumer durables industry, restructured its top tier, abolishing the post of COO and creating four director-level posts, three of which are now manned by South Koreans, he added.

The former LG executives who were asked to report to the South Koreans directors felt it was a demotion for them and deemed it as a move to curb their future growth prospects.

Former executives and four senior industry officials said the exits were part of a bigger shake in the company, with more than 350 employees leaving in the last five to six months across different levels and functions such as manufacturing, R&D, logistics, sales, marketing, services, and at the branches.

But this figure could not be independently verified. LG India has about 4,000 permanent employees on its rolls. Around one-third of these exits is said to have taken place in the mobile phone division alone. The South Korean company this year decided to shut its feature-phone business, which was struggling with a less than 2 percent market share, to focus exclusively on smartphones.

Excessively aggressive sales targets, in the wake of LG posting its lowest-ever sales growth in 2011, are attributed as one reason for the departure of mid-level and junior officials. Senior-level exits include Rohit Pandit, head of home entertainment, including TV and Sandeep Mahajan, who is credited for building LGs enviable network of more than 1,400 brand stores as head of brand stores.