Another iconic family-run business of Chennai, the $ 5 billion turnover Murugappa group, is repositioning the leadership of unit companies aligning these with families. Till recently the group had the senior most family member designated as chairman of the group: in the early stages under AMM Murugappa Chettiar (1902-1965) the group entered into a number of foreign collaborations and emerged a large light engineering conglomerate that was nurtured by AMM, his younger brother AMM Arunachalam and their nephew M V Arunachalam. The chairmanship passed on, in due course, to AMM Arunachalam and thence to M V Arunachalam. During the tenure of MVA, the group expanded through acquisitions of the two-centuries’ old EID Parry. This helped it diversify activities to sanitaryware, fertilizers, sugar, confectionary … The baton passed to MVA’s brother M V Subbiah.
