MAMR Muthiah, head of the ₹4,000-crore Chettinad Group, struck a pragmatic note when he said the interest of the organisation takes precedence over that of family and individual, clarifying his stand in the clash for control with his father MAM Ramaswamy.

Muthiah categorically said the business interests of the diversified Group cannot be served by the 85-year, wheelchair-bound MAM Ramaswamy whose decisions, he alleged, are dictated by a coterie.

In a rare interaction with mediapersons, he said recent news reports about the family trouble “though unfortunate, warrant clarification”.

Trouble had been brewing between father and the adopted son in recent years. It broke into the open last August at Chettinad Cements’ AGM when shareholders voted out Ramaswamy, the then Chairman. He refused the offer of being Chairman Emeritus for life. Muthiah, the managing director, holds 70 per cent stake in the company, Ramaswamy 22 per cent and public, the balance.

Last month the tiff turned ugly when police had to intervene after Muthiah complained that he was prevented from entering his traditional family home, the 40,000- sq-ft Chettinad Palace in Chennai. While refusing to divulge names, he alleged that the coterie comprising family members and associates had caused the rift between him and his father.

He said after being adopted a couple of decades earlier, he had taken over management of the group 15 years back. He had toiled to make the ₹60-crore business grow to a ₹4,000-crore organisation with interests in cement, shipping, power, construction and infrastructure. Hard decisions had been taken but it has evolved into a professionally run group with over 5,000 employees.

Ramaswamy had concentrated on his own areas of interests during this time but had now been misguided by people with ulterior motive and was interfering in the company management, Muthiah said. Muthiah said his father was not in a position to participate in the daily operations of the group or take ‘independent, constructive’ decisions. He is also in “no mood to listen”, he said.

Muthiah said he himself had shifted his own family to Singapore and appointed security personnel as he feared for his safety. Even the police had advised him to appoint security personnel, he added.

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