Cash-rich private sector promoters: Tata Sons continues to dominate in FY24

Premji sees over 2,100% jump in earnings from dividends, buybacks

Tata Sons continued to dominate as the country’s most cash-rich private-sector promoter in 2023-24, maintaining a significant lead over its peers.

In FY24, the Tata group holding company earned about Rs 36,500 crore from dividends and share buybacks, a 7.5 per cent increase from Rs 27,800 crore in FY23. Azim Premji of Wipro followed with earnings of nearly Rs 9,100 crore through dividends and share buybacks in FY24 — nearly 23 times the 400 crore mopup in the previous year. The Shiv Nadar family of HCL Technologies stood third, amassing close to Rs 8,600 crore in 2023-24.

Other prominent promoters in the top 10 included Anil Agarwal of Vedanta (Rs 6,800 crore), Infosys promoters (Rs 3,745 crore), Mukesh Ambani (Rs 3,322 crore), the Rahul Bajaj family (Rs 1,911 crore), the Hindujas (Rs 1,800 crore), Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma (Rs 1,765 crore), and the promoters of Asian Paints (Rs 1,681 crore).

In the past five years, Tata Sons cumulatively amassed nearly Rs 1.42 trillion from its group’s listed entities through dividends and buybacks. In comparison, Anil Agarwal earned Rs 47,000 crore through such measures, followed by Azim Premji (Rs 26,700 crore), Mukesh Ambani (Rs 13,200 crore), and Shiv Nadar (Rs 12,050 crore).

A significant portion of Tata Sons’ income came from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which declared an equity dividend of Rs 26,426 crore in FY24, the highest among all listed Indian companies. With Tata Sons holding a 71.74 per cent stake in TCS (as of March 2024), the IT giant also executed a Rs 17,000 crore share buyback last financial year. By comparison, Tata Motors paid Rs 4,766 crore in dividends, while Tata Steel distributed Rs 4,495 crore. This analysis has been based on the total equity dividend payouts and share buyback expenditures of listed companies in FY24.  

Promoter earnings have been calculated based on their shareholding in group companies at the end of the financial year. Business Standard has considered only the equity stakes of non-listed holding companies and stake of individual promoters or their family trusts as reported in shareholding data. For example, in the Tata group, only the equity stakes of unlisted entities like Tata Sons, Ewart Investments, Tata Industries, and Panatone Finvest have been considered.

India’s 10 most cash-rich promoter families collectively earned Rs 75,126 crore through dividends and buybacks in FY24, a 4 per cent decline from the Rs 78,225 crore earned in FY23. This reduction could primarily be attributed to a 74 per cent cut in Vedanta’s dividend payout, which fell to Rs 10,974 crore in FY24 from a record high of Rs 25,739 crore in FY23.

In contrast, the remaining nine promoter families on the list witnessed an uptick in their earnings, driven by increased payouts through dividends and share buybacks.

Azim Premji emerged as the biggest beneficiary, with his earnings soaring over 2,000 per cent in FY24 due to a major share buyback by Wipro, which returned Rs 12,000 crore to shareholders – with as much as Rs 9,100 crore accruing to Premji, who held a 72.92 per cent stake in the company as of March 2023. His stake at the end of March this year was 72.89 per cent.

The five promoters of Infosys — N Murthy, N Nilekani, S Gopalakrishnan, Dinesh K, and S D Shibulal — also saw significant gains, as their combined earnings through dividends nearly doubled to Rs 3,745 crore in FY24, from Rs 1,876 crore the previous year. The five together had a 13.14 per cent stake in Infosys at the end of March this year.

Infosys paid an equity dividend of Rs 19,090 crore, up from Rs 14,103 crore in FY23, and spent Rs 9,300 crore on a share buyback in June 2023.

The Hindujas recorded a 143 per cent jump in promoter earnings to Rs 1,780 crore, driven by a sharp rise in dividends from Ashok Leyland and a Rs 1,020 crore buyback by Hinduja Global. Ashok Leyland’s dividend payout surged 90.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1,143 crore in FY24.

Meanwhile, Gautam Adani’s family and Sudhir Mehta of Torrent Group dropped out of the top 10 in FY24 due to slower growth in dividend payouts by their group companies.