Woman of substance

NEWSMAKER/ Priyamvada Birla

Priyamvada Birla

Priyamvada Birla, who died after a brief illness on July 3 at Belle Vue Clinic, was for many years the invisible chairperson of the Rs 2,000 crore MP Birla group.

In settling the assets of the group on co-chairman RS Lodha, Priyamvada has shot into the limelight in a way she would have abhorred in real life. Yet she was a rule-breaker and, in a way, the developments after her demise was in keeping with her nature.

If Priyamvada's settlement of the Birla family property on a non-family member like Lodha was to be upheld, it would rewrite society's perception of family businesses.

Mind you, Priyamvada and her husband MP, were not the only childless couple to pass through the Indian business scene. Families like the Tatas had solved a similar problem through adoptions. Other families had vanished once the last survivors died.

The Priyamvada episode had turned to be different because it had a different starting. For well over a decade, in fact ever since her husband Madhav Prasad died in 1990, Priyamvada had been the head of the business empire with Rs 5000-crore plus in assets.

The MPB group, under Priyamvada, had been turning over the years to more and more charitable works, setting up hospitals (like the Belle Vue Clinic) and schools, first under the Birla name, and then after MP's demise, under the name of MP Birla.

But in becoming the chairman of the MP Birla group after 1990, Priyamvada had in a way established herself as an individual who was not afraid to make her own rules.

In a severely traditional family, like the Birlas, one would have expected her take a backseat and quietly agreed to have the group chaperoned by one, or a group of, senior Birla men. A lady in the driver's seat was a quiet revolt in the Birla Buildings.

Ever since the division of the Birla family assets in the 1980's, the group had its own third floor office in Kolkata's Birla Buildings, and had maintained the usual arm's length distance from other Birla family business groups in the same building. But few outside her chosen inner circle ever saw or interacted with the reclusive Priyamvada.

Priyamvada was the rulebreaker in one more sense. The closest Birla relative she and MP had was Yash, the son of Ashok Birla and the grandson of Gajanan, MP's brother. Ashok died in an air-crash when Yash was a child and initially, the childless MP-Priyamvada duo looked after Yash.

Yet, things changed after 1990, when Yash moved out of their home and Kolkata. Priyamvada was now heading the Birla group without any Birla to help her.

It was in this scenario that she inducted and then elevated Rajendra Lodha to the post of co-chairman of the group in 1999-2000. A highly respected chartered accountant and consultant who was the auditor of several Birla companies across all the family factions, Lodha's elevation over the stewardship of a Birla family member, was one more proof of Priyamvada's independent mind.

Surprisingly, the other Birlas took in all this without a murmur. Priyamvada was reportedly very clear about what she wanted. The only Birla scion, who was in her good books, was Nandini Nopany, KK Birla's daughter.

If the MP Birla assets were to be settled in the way suggested by the will presented to the Birla family, it would be in keeping with the path-breaking course of action that Priyamvada had followed after her husband's demise.

A professional team managing the group's assets would bring the first whiff of the new millennium into the exalted corridors of the patriarchal, family-run Birla empire.