When MV Murugappan passed away in 2017, he left the 8.15% stake he held in Ambadi Investments to his wife and his two daughters. Over the past two years, Valli, the older daughter, has been fighting for a say in the family business. She has neither been able to sell the family’s stake to another family member, nor get a seat on the board of Ambadi. As a shareholder, she has a right to exercise her position and vote.
Ambadi investments is the holding company of the group and has direct shareholding in the group companies. 91% percent of Ambadi Investments is held by the Murugappan family. Of this, 8.15% now belongs to Valli, her sister and her mother. Valli and her family also hold stakes in the group's listed companies.
In an earlier interview with TNM, Valli said that she was told she cannot be inducted onto the board because she doesn’t have an ‘intimate working knowledge of the company’. Women of the Murugappan family have never been given an opportunity to gain any experience on that front, Valli alleged.
“When they said I don’t have a working knowledge of the company, I told them that women were never given the opportunity. To this, I was told that women have never asked to be on the board. But here I am. I have been repeatedly asking for it for the past two years. So why are they discriminating against me based on my gender?” she told TNM in January.
The Murugappa Group family tree as displayed on the company's website