The Hindu Business Line : The engineer behind the giant

Henning Holck-Larsen identified himself totally with Indian industry and business and believed in ensuring that the company’s customers got the best. He is best known for his sense of humour, looking after people and nurturing talent.

N. Ramakrishnan

Talk to any old-timer at L&T, and they will fondly recall their interactions, however far and few they were, with Henning Holck-Larsen, a part of whose name India’s biggest engineering and construction company carries. And, tomorrow almost all employees of Larsen & Toubro will celebrate the birth centenary of Holck-Larsen, the Dane who made India his country and co-founded along with classmate, another Dane, Soren Kristian Toubro, L&T.

He always used to say “in service lies success” and that is perhaps Holck-Larsen’s biggest legacy to the company, says Mr K.V. Rangaswami, Director and President (Construction), L&T. Mr Rangaswami recalls his interactions with Holck-Larsen, a man with a great sense of humour and one who took interest in all aspects of the company long after his retirement.

Both Mr Rangaswami and Mr A. Ramakrishna, who retired as Deputy Managing Director of L&T in December 2004 after more than four decades with the company, recall an incident when they were accompanying Holck-Larsen on a tour of ECC’s (Engineering, Construction and Contracts Division of L&T) campus at suburban Chennai when Holck-Larsen was well into his 90s.

They came to the Toubro block (named after Soren Kristian Toubro) and the Mortensen block (who was associated with the company for a long time) and told Holck-Larsen that the blocks had been named after two people who had shaped the company. Without batting an eyelid, Holck-Larsen told them, “now I can’t wait too long” (for a building to be named after him on the campus). After his death in 2003, L&T built a Holck-Larsen Centre at the ECC campus. The centre gives a complete history of the company, probably the only such memorial for the man who founded and shaped the company, says Mr Ramakrishna.

A place in India’s heart

Holck-Larsen was conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2002 — upon which he remarked that “India has a special place in my heart. With the Padma Bhushan, I am happy to know that I have a place in her heart too” — and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding in 1976.

Born on July 4, 1907, Holck-Larsen founded Larsen & Toubro as a partnership firm in 1938 with Soren Kristian Toubro. A chemical engineer, Holck-Larsen was the risk-taker while Toubro, a civil engineer, was more conservative.

Together, they shaped the company into what it is now today — an engineering conglomerate that has undergone several changes over the years and still continues to evolve by entering new businesses, but retains its basic character of a company with strong foundations in quality and nurturing its technical talent.

Holck-Larsen retired as chairman in 1978 after 40 years of nurturing the company. He was made chairman emeritus in December 1987. Even after his retirement, Holck-Larsen took an active interest in the company and always sent notes on any interesting aspect that he came across, always to the person concerned with the topic.

After retirement, he would spend six months in a year in India and the other six months in Denmark, and used to extensively travel to various L&T facilities. He identified himself totally with Indian industry and business and always believed in ensuring that the company’s customers got the best. His personal qualities of sense of humour, looking after people and nurturing talent is what makes L&T special even today, say old-timers in the company.

Grooming People

Mr Ramakrishna, who became head of the ECC division in 1992 and was in charge of the division till his retirement 12 years later, remembers a particular anecdote involving Holck-Larsen.

Mr Ramakrishna had assumed the responsibility on the retirement of Mr C.R. Ramakrishnan, who too had a long stint as head of ECC. On a visit to ECC’s campus, Holck-Larsen told Mr Ramakrishna that his predecessor had done well — not just in growing the company but also in identifying his successor. And, his message to Mr Ramakrishna (or AR as he is known to all in L&T) was that he too should do the same — grow the company and at the same time groom his successor.

Holck-Larsen’s emphasis was on grooming people and delegating responsibility so that the company benefited and grew. He believed that it was easy for a company to get materials and money to implement projects, but the most difficult aspect was in finding the men to execute them and hence his emphasis on identifying talent and nurturing it.

Mr Ramakrishna also recollects another typically Holck-Larsen comment. After he had given a detailed presentation on ECC, Holck-Larsen commended him both for the presentation and the division’s performance and came up with a sagely advice: To make any speech more interesting, always inject some humour in it.

Holck-Larsen did not believe that ownership required a substantial stake in the company, and at one time he had a marginal stake — about 1.5 per cent — but still believed that the company was his and ran it on purely professional grounds. Which is the structure that L&T has managed to retain till date, despite some efforts to change ownership in the 1990s — it is run by professionals, while financial institutions hold a large part of the equity. Perhaps, the best tribute that the company can pay to its late founder.

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