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After setting a rare example by relinquishing all board responsibilities at the ripe young age of 65 years, NR Narayana Murthy did a U-turn two years later to come back to become the chairman of Infosys. If you have to come back why leave at all in the first place, a not-very small group of senior-citizen counterparts must be whispering to themselves.
Indian companies are no stranger to Plus-65 chairpersons. In fact, these senior citizens are a dominant age group in Indian boards. According to data provided by Indianboards.com, nearly a fourth of the boards of top 500 Indian companies are headed by grandfathers and in some cases great-grandfathers.
Of the 112 listed companies that had such elderly chairpersons or managing directors, one was above 90, ten companies had heads who were in their 80s, 58 leaders were in their 70s and the remaining 43 in the 66-69 age group.
At 92 years, Kumar Mangalam Birla’s grand-father Basant Kumar Birla is the chairman of Century Textiles & Industries is the oldest chairperson of a listed firm in the country. Hero’s Brijmohan Lall Munjal, who took the Ludhiana-based bicycle maker into the fast lane continues to throttle the group at 89 years.
While the Birla patriarch occupies the chair in a non-executive capacity, Munjal continues in executive position. KP Singh, 82, is the rock of realty major DLF. JB Mody of JB chemicals and pharma, MAM Ramaswamy of Chettinad Cements and KM Sheth of Great Eastern Shipping are some of the octogenerarians heading company boards.
As many as 58 companies had chairman/ managing directors in their 70s. Some of the prominent names in this category include Rahul Bajaj, who is the chairperson of Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Holding and Investment and Bajaj Finance. Of these, he continues to be an executive director in Bajaj Auto, while in other companies he has a non-executive role. He is a promoter shareholder in all companies. He will turn 76 soon.
Similarly, 71-year old Adi Godrej chairs the boards of Godrej Consumer Products, Godrej Industries and Godrej Properties. Nusli Wadia, who will soon turn 70, heads Bombay Dyeing, Brittania and Bombay Burmah trading. Lalit Modi’s 71-year old father KK Modi is the managing director of Godfrey Phillips.
Though the next generation has been waiting in the wings, these family businesses continue to look up to their patriarchs for guidance and leadership. It also helps keep the flock together.
But such arguments do not explain why even truly public companies with no identifiable promoter group continue with elderly chairpersons. Anil Kumar Manibhai Naik, 71, is the Executive chairperson of Larsen & Toubro. His managing director & chief executive officer K Venkatramanan is slightly younger at 68. Recently, Naik told a newspaper that there is no successor in sight and that he is “slogging to find” one. Naik’s other protégé YM Deosthalee heads L&T Finance Holdings as its chairperson. He is 66.
Another sixty-six year old heads a company whose ownership is as diversified as its business empire. ITC’s Yogi Deveshwar has been at helm for several years now. Nimesh Kampani of JM Financial, ICRA’s PK chowdhry, Emami’s Radhey Shyam Agarwal and India Cements’ deputy chairperson and managing director N Srinivasan figure in the list of 43 companies with heads in the 65-69 age group.
Indiaboards.com noted that the “list was not complete and contained data for only those companies which have filed the designations and age of the Directors with us or for which we have been able to capture the same from public sources.” The data base added, “Companies which have not filed either the designations or the age of the directors with us and for which we have also not been able to capture data from public sources are not covered in this list.”
