Vijaypat Singhania, former Chairman of Raymond, expressed deep disappointment witnessing his son Gautam Singhania "breaking up" the company. In an exclusive interview with Business Today, the 85-year-old businessman shared that it took a lot of time and effort to build Raymond's legacy, adding that seeing his son dismantle the company is heart-wrenching.
Despite his feelings, Vijaypat Singhania clarified that he refrains from intervening in Gautam's decisions.
“He's (Gautam Singhania) breaking up Raymond. It breaks my heart. But I don't interfere. I don't tell him what he should do. He has to live. I have lived my life. I have maybe 2-3 years left,” Vijaypat Singhania said.
Vijaypat Singhania also spoke about the separation of Gautam Singhania and his estranged wife, Nawaz Modi. “It’s difficult to describe what one goes through when you see your own family going to this kind of stress. I can only pray to God. He helps to solve these issues,” Singhania said.
“I hadn't hoped I'd have to see this in my own family,” he added.
However, he made it clear during the interview that “it is not my business to interfere in what two grown-up people are likely to go through”.
On the potential negative impact of the dispute on Raymond's reputation, Vijaypat Singhania remarked that it depends on how shareholders, bankers, and stakeholders perceive the situation.
"Raymond has a very large number of mature, logical shareholders. They can think for themselves. If they see something bad, they react quickly,” Singhania said.
"Raymond's name will ultimately depend on how a larger number of shareholders, bankers, buyers, sellers look at it. There are two things in it. One is how they see the issue itself and how it will affect them and they will also look at Raymond's performance and they are not necessarily the same. So, I think it's a very difficult question to answer whether it will affect the Raymond name. We took a long time to build it. It was a very small company making blankets when we bought and then I took over. Today, it has worldwide fame,” he added.
Gautam Singhania and Nawaz Modi’s separation has led to a Rs 1,500 crore erosion of Raymond Limited’s market capitalisation. Worth noting that in the last five trading sessions, Raymond Ltd’s stock has declined 8 per cent despite being one of the best-performing stocks after Covid lows; it has risen as much as eight times since March 2020.
The decline came after reports indicated that Nawaz Modi asked Gautam Singhania for a divorce settlement worth 75 per cent of his $1.4 billion net worth. However, during the interview, Vijaypat Singhania also said his son will never agree to Nawaz Modi's demand to secure the financial well-being of their two daughters, Niharika and Nisa.
“Under the Hindu Marriage Act, as I know, 50 per cent of the husband's holding automatically goes to the wife in a separation. A very simple lawyer can get her that under the Hindu Marriage Act. Why is she fighting for 75 per cent? Gautam is never going to give in because his motto is to buy everybody and buy everything,” Vijaypat Singhania said.
“That's what he did with me. I didn't have that kind of money left to fight him. He bought everything. He'll buy everything. By fighting like this, I don't think she'll get much," he added.
Vijaypat Singhania, who stepped down as the chairman of Raymond in 2015, also encountered a similar rift with his son after he handed over the reins to him.
In a prior dispute a few years ago, Vijaypat and Gautam Singhania found themselves in a heated disagreement over various issues, notably involving property matters.
The discord came to the forefront in 2017 when Vijaypat Singhania claimed that Raymond Ltd had not handed over a duplex in the JK House, a multi-storey building located in south Mumbai. He was removed as Raymond's Chairman Emeritus in 2018.
According to a 2007 family agreement, Vijaypat, his son Gautam, the widow, and two sons of Vijaypat's brother Ajaypat Singhania were designated to receive individual duplexes in the family-owned JK House.
Vijaypat contended that he was denied possession of a flat in the 36-storey JK House and filed a petition asserting that Gautam occupied more space than rightfully allocated to him. Additionally, he claimed that Raymond remained unresponsive to his offers of payment to acquire the duplex.
The dispute escalated when Vijaypat, an enthusiastic aviator, alleged that numerous invaluable documents and a gold medal bestowed by the President of India were missing from his cabin at Mahindra Tower in Worli.
