Women hold lion’s share of Big Business

LEADING LADIES
Women hold lion’s share of Big Business
Deepshikha Monga & Vivek Sinha NEW DELHI


BEHIND every rich man, there’s a richer woman — or so it would seem if you go by the disclosed individual shareholdings of companies. Even as traditional Indian business houses have controlled their listed companies through a myriad holding entities, a look at some prominent companies and family-led businesses reveals that the women of the house are the largest ‘individual’ shareholders in the group’s listed firms. These leading ladies include Pia Singh (DLF), Sudha Gopalakrishnan (Infosys), Kokilaben Ambani (Reliance Group and Reliance ADAG), Vidya Subramanian (India Cements), Indu Punj (Punj Lloyd) and Rajashree Birla (Grasim).
Their individual holdings are in addition to their stake held through the group’s holding companies. These privately-held firms do not declare their shareholding pattern and the actual quantum of wealth of these women members of promoter families cannot be determined. But even their minuscule holdings in large listed firms make their net worth impressive.
ET left out of this reckoning companies directly run by women CEOs or promoters like Biocon where Kiran Mazumdar Shaw owns close to 40% of the biotech firm or Anu Aga who has now relinquished the top seat to her daughter Meher Pudumjee at Thermax. Men still walk a few steps ahead in holding cos
IFthe data in the public domain is considered, then Pia Singh, daughter of real estate king KP Singh of DLF, is the wealthiest. Her 2.27% stake is valued at Rs 2,314.26 crore, at the closing price of the scrip on Friday.
Next on the list is Sudha Gopalakrishnan, wife of S Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Bangalore-based Infosys. Her 2.15% stake in the country’s secondlargest software exporter is valued, even after a mauling in the stock market, at Rs 1,748.19 crore.
She ranks even ahead of Kokilaben Ambani, wife of Reliance Group founder Dhirubhai Ambani, who is the single-largest individual shareholder in almost all listed firms led by her two sons Mukesh and Anil. For instance, her 0.25% direct holding in Reliance Industries, the most valued publicly listed firm in the country, is valued at Rs 934.65 crore.
Her individual holdings in Reliance Capital, Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy and Reliance Natural Resources, all led by her younger son Anil Ambani, are cumulatively valued at Rs 371.35 crore, making the total value of her holdings in these five firms Rs 1,306.1 crore.
Incidentally, she doesn’t have any direct personal holdings in the two recently-listed firms run by her two sons Reliance Petroleum and Reliance Power.
Indu Punj, mother of Atul Punj who heads engineering and construction major Punj Lloyd, owns exactly the same number of shares as her husband SNP Punj. Her direct holding, at 3.42% of the firm, is worth Rs 343 crore. This is marginally below that of Vidya Subramanian of Chennai-based India Cements, whose 7.08% stake in the cement maker is valued at Rs 364 crore. Similarly, Rajashree Birla is the largest individual stakeholder in both Aditya Birla Nuvo and Grasim Industries.
Says corporate law firm Titus & Co’s Diljeet Titus: “Women like DLF’s Pia Singh are the largest individual stakeholders because of succession planning. For other firms, tax planning could be behind giving the largest stake to the promoter’s wife or daughter.”
Some other mid-sized companies have seen some changes recently in shareholding in favour or against the women of the family. In case of Mirc Electronics, which owns the Onida brand of consumer durables, the sons of a co-promoter gifted their shares in the group holding company to their mother, Soni Mirchandani. She now owns one-third of the privately-held holding firm Guviso Holdings, which in turn holds 52.74% of Mirc Electronics.
Sabena Puri, daughter of Moser Baer chairman Deepak Puri, was, till December-end, the largest individual stakeholder in the firm with a 6.95% stake. A recent inter-se transfer among the promoters saw her transfer all her shares to her brother, Ratul Puri, who is also Moser Baer executive director.
However, in most groups, the real key lies in the holding entities which are, more often than not, led by the male members of the business group. In some groups like the Jindals, who own a string of steel companies, the reverse is true. Even as Savitri Jindal, group chairperson and widow of group founder OP Jindal, represents the group’s wealth in some global ranking of billionaires, her individual shareholding is smaller than that of her sons in their respective companies.
deepshikha.monga@timesgroup.com