108 year old Hinduja Group to split this month

The splitting of assets between the family between the family members of the $14-billion Hinduja Group could be complete by this month’s end, around six months after the UK’s richest family agreed to set aside a 2014 agreement, a London court ruling published last week showed.

According to sources, on this basis, the division of the family business will be finalized in this month itself. If the partition is not finalized in the month of November, then once again this matter can reach the court. The Hinduja Group owns dozens of companies, out of which six are listed companies. IndusInd Bank, which is involved in the banking business in India, is also owned by the Hinduja Group. Apart from this, a company named Ashok Leyland, a major manufacturer of commercial vehicles, is also owned by the Hinduja Group.

The over 100-year-old conglomerate comprises 38 companies including flagship IndusInd Bank. Half a dozen companies of the group are listed.

The rulings published last week highlighted that the family in June told the court to end "all disputes existing between them in all jurisdictions", including one which began at London's High Court in 2019 over the Hinduja family's assets. The judgement stated that the family reached a confidential agreement concerning the Chancery proceedings and other litigation abroad on June 30, 2022.

In 2014, an agreement was signed by the four Hinduja brothers — Srichand Hinduja, GP Hinduja, PP Hinduja and AP Hinduja — that “everything belongs to everyone, and nothing belongs to anyone”, the legal validity of which became the point of contention. In addition to this, the Hinduja brothers had also agreed that each brother will be the executor of the other's will.

While GP, Ashok and Prakash Hinduja believed that the pact laid the foundation for succession planning for the 108-year-old conglomerate, ‘patriarch’ SP’s daughters Shanu and Veenu challenged it in 2019 and the matter became public in 2020. Both contended that their uncles have sidelined and “financially squeezed” them from the family wealth.

The group is present in eleven sectors including automotive, oil and specialty chemicals, banking and finance, IT and ITeS, cyber security, healthcare, trading, infrastructure project development, media and entertainment, power, and real estate. The Hinduja brothers have around 100 billion dollars of assets around the world. The Hinduja family has around 50 billion dollars of assets in America. The current (2022) net worth of the Hinduja brothers is 32 billion dollars.

Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja were connected with the investigation into the Bofors scandal, in which Swedish firm Bofors was alleged to have paid illegal bribes to government officials and politicians in connection with the US$1.3 billion sale of 400 howitzers to the Indian Government in 1986. The three brothers were charged by the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation in October 2000, but in 2005 the High Court in Delhi threw out all charges against them, citing a lack of evidence and saying that documents central to the prosecution case were "useless and dubious" since their provenance could not be verified.

Hinduja Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. was established in 1994 as a Swiss Banking Institution with a business model based on offering individuals and institutions with strong entrepreneurial and growth interests, innovative solutions in wealth management and private banking, trade finance, corporate advisory services and global investment solutions.