Tata Sons is the principal investment holding company and promoter of Tata Companies. Notably, 66% of its equity share capital is held by philanthropic trusts, which focus on supporting education, health, livelihood generation, and art and culture. But there is one share of the multibillion dollar corporation that is owned by a royal family hailing from Gujarat.
The company’s official shareholding data as of March 2023 still shows that Maharawal Virendrasinhji Chauhan still owns one share of the company. He was the king of the small princely state called Chota Udaipur in Gujarat. He died in 2005, but his heirs still have a claim at the solitary share.
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Sometime in the 1980s, Virendrasinhji was allotted twelve or thirteen shares in Tata Sons due to his close relationship with JRD Tata, as detailed in a report from Scroll quoting his son Jai Pratap. Jai Pratap isn’t certain of the exact number or the specifics of the transaction, but he believes it was likely part of an internal reorganisation—a common practice in unlisted companies—where shares became available, and a trusted individual was needed to take charge of them.
According to Jai Pratap, in 1998, Virendrasinhji was establishing a garment manufacturing business in Bengaluru and decided to sell his Tata Sons shares to raise the necessary funds. Despite this, he wisely chose to retain one share, preserving the rare privilege of being a Tata Sons shareholder.
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