Family-owned TVS Group restructures ownership model, holding company structure to be abolished

The $8.5-billion, Chennai-based TVS Group has embarked on a restructuring exercise whereby each family group would get complete ownership of the companies they manage and the holding company structure would be abolished.

According to a stock exchange filing by the group on Thursday, the new arrangement will not affect the management and functioning of the company in any way, and business would continue without impacting any of the stakeholders.

Under the new structure, though each branch of the family would become independent and manage the businesses they are running, the terms of the family arrangement do not envisage any royalty or brand usage payments from the operating businesses/companies to the TVS family members/their holding companies, the filing said.

“With the passage of time, various members of the TVS family felt that the ownership of shares in various companies/businesses should align and synchronise with the management of the respective companies, as is currently being done. Keeping this objective in mind, the members of the TVS family have today agreed to subscribe to the terms of a memorandum of family arrangement in order to record the terms of the family arrangement so agreed upon. Senior nominated members of the TVS family shall now deliberate on how best to further implement this arrangement,” the filing said.

With this restructuring, Venu Srinivasan and Sudarshan Venu will manage TVS Motor, TVS Credit, and Sundaram Clayton and some other firms.

The TVS family has been engaged, for more than a century, in a diverse range of businesses through various entities in which the branches of the TVS family have invested in or through TV Sundram Iyengar & Sons Private Limited, Sundaram Industries Private Limited and Southern Roadways Private Limited collectively called as TVS holding companies.

The TVS Group comprises over 50 companies and employs a total workforce of close to 39,000 employees.

Over the decades, the TVS family has expanded their businesses and the TVS Group has grown into a large business conglomerate with interests in several businesses operating in diversified fields, including two-wheeler and automotive component manufacturing, automotive dealerships, distribution of automotive parts, financial services, logistics services, electronics, textiles and needles.

The current shareholders of the TVS holding companies primarily consist of the third and fourth generations of the original founder, TV Sundaram Iyengar. The various businesses and entities of the TVS Group have been traditionally managed by members of the different branches of the TVS family.