2024-04-12 08:57:26
New Delhi: A few years ago, when the corporate battle was being fought at JRD Tata, the primary feminine director of Tata Sons from whom she took recommendation, this relationship with Ratan Tata!
– 2024-05-16 12:02:22″>Tata Sons, a strange secret came to light. In the list of Tata Sons shareholders made public, Tata Trust held 2,66,610 shares, Shapoorji Pallonji family held 74,352 shares, various Tata companies held 49,365 shares and Tata family members held a total of 8,235 shares. But, amidst this huge shareholding, a name came to the fore who held only 1 share. It was owned by someone named Virendra Singh Chauhan of Chhota Udaipur. The question was, who was this unknown person? How did he get this 1 share in Tata Sons?
This question was big because at that time it was an unlisted company. Its shareholding was limited to a small circle of Tata insiders. Even the Shapoorji Pallonji family was considered outsiders. His acquisition of Tata Sons shares through private deals was frowned upon by the Tata family as ‘intrusion’. No one knew who Virendra Singh Chauhan of Chhota Udaipur was. Under what circumstances did he get the stake of Tata Sons? The intriguing question was how he had only one share.
It was revealed that the mysterious Virendra Singh Chauhan of Chhota Udaipur was actually Maharawal Virendrasinhji Natwarsinhji Chauhan who had passed away. He died a decade before the corporate war that started a few years ago at Tata Sons. However, his son Jai Pratap Singhji was traced. Chhota Udaipur was a small princely state in Gujarat, ruled by the descendants of Prithviraj Chauhan. Maharawal was the title given to its rulers who were patrons of art and architecture.
Owned a Rolls Royce Phantom
Maharawal Natwar Singhji, the ruler of the 1930s, was apparently one of the people in the world who was admired by his peers for, among other things, the 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom. He had it built especially for himself. It had a gilded interior. A second dashboard was specially installed at the rear of the car, so that its royal passengers could keep an eye on its speed and mileage. When Maharawal Natwarsinhji died suddenly while on holiday in Lisbon in 1946, the title passed to his son Virendrasinhji. At that time the son was only 11 years old. Thus during the tumultuous times in 1947 when Chhota Udaipur along with other princely states were integrated into independent India, Virendrasinhji was a minor.
Virendrasinhji was educated at Daly College, Indore. He grew up to develop an unusual business sense. In an issue of the Economic Weekly in 1962, Virendrasinhji was described as an industrialist. He was listed as a director of National Ecco, a Tata company set up to manufacture radios. He was only 25 years old at that time. He was the same age as Ratan Tata who was an apprentice in Tata Steel at that time.
The secret of that 1 share
Virendrasinhji became the director of different companies with time. He joined the board along with famous industrialists and company directors of that time such as SS Kirloskar, BM Ghia, MS Talolikar, Navroz B Vakil, the Maharaja of Baroda and Hasham Premji (father of Azim Premji). But, more importantly, Virendrasinhji became the director of Tata Mills when he was still in his 30s. Its chairman was Naval Tata, father of Ratan Tata. He also joined the company’s board along with other members of the Tata family. Over the years, he thus became a trusted Tata insider. Due to his close ties with JRD Tata, Virendrasinhji got 12 or 13 shares in Tata Sons in the 1980s. It is not known where the remaining shares went. But, 1 share was left.