Lord Swraj Paul: The industrialist who changed India Inc's comfort zone

How Swraj Paul's bids for Escorts and DCM jolted promoter complacency and rewired attitudes to hostile takeovers and shareholder rights

Hostile takeovers were once unthinkable in India’s promoter-dominated market. Noted non-resident Indian (NRI) industrialist and philanthropist Lord Swraj Paul changed that. In the early 1980s, operating from London, he accumulated shares in Escorts and Delhi Cloth Mills (DCM), launching a challenge that unsettled legacy business families. The mechanics and outcome are now well-rehearsed — but their effect endures: Promoters professionalised faster, defence playbooks evolved, and institutional investors began asserting themselves.

 

The episodes also seeded a broader debate on market openness and the role of foreign capital in domestic corporate control. Even decades later, Paul’s name resurfaced in Delhi’s deal circles whenever control contests were discussed; the broker who fronted trades in that era returned to headlines in 2007, underlining how decisively those battles had entered corporate folklore.

 

 

What did the battles achieve beyond immediate outcomes? First, they forced promoters to confront dispersed shareholding. Second, they accelerated the informal adoption of takeover defences, from white-knight alliances to balance-sheet fortification. Third, they shifted the conversation on governance — minority shareholders and mutual funds became harder to ignore. That arc later intersected with regulation on substantial acquisition of shares and takeovers, giving India a clearer rulebook and a more level field for bids — hostile or otherwise. (While the evolution owes to many actors, Paul’s role was catalytic.)

 

Seen with hindsight, Paul’s push was less about a single trophy asset and more about modern market behaviour. It nudged family enterprises towards transparency and professional management, and it familiarised India Inc with the vocabulary of corporate control contests that global markets took for granted. As news of his passing rekindles those memories, the legacy of those bids lies in the guardrails and reflexes they helped install — quietly shaping how India now thinks about control, stewardship, and shareholder rights.