The Birlas, one of India's leading industrial families, may not be a cohesive business group since a split two decades ago, but they are now closing ranks as an outsider threatens to take over part of the sprawling empire.
The dispute centres on a will read out to shocked family members last month after the death of the wife of the late Madhav Prasad Birla, who headed one of seven separate groups the Birlas now operate, ranging from cement to telecoms to metals firms.
If the will proves valid, Madhav's widow Priyamvada will have bequeathed control of assets worth an estimated 50 billion rupees ($1.1 billion) to her confidant and the auditor of many Birla companies, R.S. Lodha.
The Birlas are challenging the validity of the will in court. They say the couple, who had no children, had always wanted their assets to go to charity.
"I don't think they are fighting for the property," business historian Dwijendra Tripathi said. "It is more a matter of family pride. How can a Birla property go to someone else?"
Such a sentiment will resonate for many among India's big business families, including the Tatas or Reliance's Ambanis, who are increasingly bringing qualified outsiders into the fold to meet the demands of the modern corporate world.
Combined sales for companies run by Birlas now total about $11 billion. Their interests also include textiles, autos and media.
Originally from Pilani in the western state of Rajasthan, the family moved to Calcutta in the late 1890s. There, one of the four founding brothers of the Birla empire, Ghanshyam Das Birla, redirected the family's focus from jute and opium trade to manufacturing.
Active in India's freedom struggle against the British, Ghanshyam forged a close relationship with Mahatma Gandhi. In the early 1900s, he set up Birla Jute Manufacturing Company Ltd, in defiance of a Scottish monopoly in the industry.
That first company is now Birla Corporation flagship of the group set to be handed over to Lodha, a portly, well-dressed accountant who once headed the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
The Birla group's cohesiveness did not outlive its patriarch, and the group split a few years after Ghanshyam's death in 1983. Newspaper reports suggest the break-up was acrimonious.
So Priyamvada may have wanted her assets to go to an outsider because giving them to another Birla could have heightened family tensions that developed after Ghanshyam's death, Tripathi said.
While Birla family members claim not to want a single cent, Indian newspapers say their united opposition indicates a fear that Lodha could control a quarter of Pilani Investments, a holding company with stakes in many large Birla companies.
Pilani has investments in some companies in the Aditya Birla group, named after Ghanshyam's grandson, Aditya.
The group is India's third-largest private business group and accounts for 60 percent of the extended Birla group's turnover.
"I don't think there is much danger to other companies. Lodha may, at the most, be entitled to a seat on the board, nothing more," Tripathi said. The Birlas have enlisted help from legal luminaries to tackle the will dispute, but Tripathi said it was likely to be settled out of court as they would prefer to keep their affairs private.
Lodha's auditing firm, a leading name in Indian accounting circles, has already been dropped by some Birla companies.
The willing away of assets to an outsider is unprecedented in Indian business families, many of whom are from the Marwari community. Marwari once meant people from Marwar in Rajasthan, but it is now a generic term for anyone from the state.
Originally traders and moneylenders, Marwaris made it big when they migrated out of the desert state to greener economic pastures such as Bombay and Calcutta in pre-independence days.
Birlas have tended to give key positions to family members and Marwari friends. Control always remained in Birla hands, but bosses would depend on the advice of these trusted lieutenants.
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