In my early years of journalism in the 1960s, Sundaram Motors in Mount Road was on my regular beat. It housed the registered offices of other TVS group companies and workshops to service the vehicles sold. The sprawling five-acre property also had TVS senior managers. I remember with a lot of respect and feeling one such: S N Ramasami who was handling advertisements and PR for the group. A freedom fighter, clad in pure khadi, who authored a book on Motor Vehicles Act, was assisting the directors of TVS & Sons on the preparation of reports for Indian Roads and Transport Development Association (IRTDA) and The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA).
It was the meeting place for other experts on the automobile industry like H B Stanford of Simpsons. A grandson of the founder, Suresh Krishna was one of the frequent visitors. Scions of the founder Sundaram Iyengar, like S Narayanan (IMPAL) and K R Ragavan, who headed Sundaram Motors, also provided interesting nuggets. One such related to TVS acquiring that vast property on Anna Salai.
Prior to the bifurcation of the Madras Presidency into linguistic states in 1956, Chennai also had a large population of Andhras. Large chunks of property in Chennai were owned by the landed gentry of Andhra like the Panagal Maharaja and several prosperous zamindars. The present property of TVS belonged to a group of zamindars from Kirlampudi and Challapalli, two of the three who founded the KCP. (The other was the zamindar of Paralakhemundi.) The extent of property owned by them was two pieces of land parcels of 6 acres and 4 acres (approx. 180 grounds). T S Duraiswamy, the eldest son of the founder, was then chairman of TVS. He felt the amount involved for the entire 10 acres was too huge and opted to buy only one piece. The cost mentioned was around Rs 2.2 lakh! When K R Ragavan narrated this nugget, I remembered the price of a Maruti car was just about that in the 1990s!
Acquisition of this property formed the beginning of the spectacular growth of the TVS group in Chennai. The registered offices of dozens of companies of TVS that came into being in quick succession in the 1960s, functioned from this landmark address in Mount Road.
A recent report on the sale of this property to the Prestige Group at cost of around Rs 550 crore would surely make the present scions of TVS family rue why their great grandfather didn’t acquire the other land parcel offered by the KCP zamindars!
The present owners of KCP would remember T S Duraiswamy for part financing the industrial house, KCP, founded by another illustrious bureaucrat and business leader, V Ramakrishna.
Monetisation of assets…Â
In the early years of evolution, the TVS family acquired a lot of land parcels spread across the south and set up branches for distribution of vehicles, repair shops and servicing of vehicles, parcel service… The group took agencies for distribution of Ashok Leyland and Premier Automobiles vehicles earlier and later of Honda, Mercedes Benz and other cars. It also set up petrol and diesel retail outlets.
The present restructuring of the TVS Group will distribute the properties and wealth to entities owned by the individual families of the descendants of the founder. In that process, perhaps, there may also be consolidation of homogenised activities. IMPAL, Madras Auto Service, Sundaram Motors and TVS & Sons, all are dealers of vehicles, motor parts, vehicles… Perhaps these activities may be consolidated. That explains the monetisation of the assets of Sundaram Motors that runs into several hundred crores of rupees.
