Corporate Grapevine

Published: Jan 31, 2022
Updated: Jan 31, 2022

Fab Fours smoking peace pipe

The Hinduja brothers have reportedly decided to working on an amicable settlement. I have initiated talks over the group’s fortunes. On the disastrous table, while Janak Dwarkadas is representing SP Hinduja and his daughter Vinoo, the other three Hinduja brothers have hired Harish Salve as their mediator.

For over five decades since the death of Mr Parmanand, the founder of the Hinduja business empire, his sons the four Hinduja brothers — Srichand (84), Gopichand (80), Prakash (75) and Ashok (70) — have been controlling the business of the group. In fact, these four brothers popularly known as Fab Fours, have built a $ 21 billion business empire that is almost equal to the GDP of Mongolia, in the process spanning continents, hobnobbing with royalty and the who’s who of politics and entertainment. What is more, the foursome have projected a united front, even comparing themselves to the protagonists of the Ramayana (Ram, Laxman, Bharat and Shatrugan) – different bodies and one soul! They have shared a huge mansion with four interconnected houses spread over 67,000 sq ft in London’s upmarket neighbourhood of Westminster, and are neighbours to the British queen. There had for long been no reports of any quarrel between them.

But now all four siblings have grown old, the youngest, Ashok, himself having crossed 70 years. The time has obviously come for the third generation of the clan. Srichand has two daugthers, Shanu and Vinoo, while Gopichand has two sons, Sanjay and Dheeraj, and a daughter, Rita. Prakash has two sons, Ajay and Ramkrishna, and a daughter, Renuka. Ashok has two daughters, Ambika and Satya, and one son, Shom.

AMBITIOUS CHILDREN

Interestingly, the third generation is educated, intelligent and ambitious. Most of the children are already in responsible positions in the management of the group businesses. Srichand’s daughters Shanu and Vinoo are highly ambitious and Gopichand’s sons Sanjay and Dheeraj are considered among the brightest minds in the group. But the new Hindujas are not as close to one another as their parents have been. In fact, the frictions are quite apparent and the fathers too have been drawn into this disharmony. The guiding principle of the Hinudja empire – that all businesses and properties are for all – is now being questioned within the family.

The fight in the family cropped up in public when Srichand’s daughter Vinoo moved the UK High Court seeking control of the Switzerland-based Hinduja Bank in which her father is the Chairman Emeritus and her elder sister Shanu is the Chairperson. Shanu’s son Karan Hinduja has joined the bank as CEO recently. The bone of contention among the Hinduja brothers is a letter signed by them in July 2014 which says that the “assets held in a single brother’s name belong to all four brothers.” Vinoo insists that the bank belongs to their (Shrichand) family only.

Observers feel that this will be a point of no return for the family. However, the four brothers do not want to wash their dirty linen in public, as has been the case in some other business families. They seem to be veering round to the view that if it is inevitable to split the group’s assets, it should be amicably and without any public display of disunity. Ergo, they have decided to smoke the peace pipe.