NEW DELHI: A M Naik on Saturday (September 30), stepped down as the Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Group Chairman, handing over the reins of the $23 billion conglomerate to S N Subrahmanyan. Naik, 81, will now be Chairman of the Group’s IT companies and the employees’ trust. He will also continue to focus on scaling up many philanthropic initiatives that he has been undertaking for the past few years.
At an event hosted at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, in the presence of some 1,500-odd senior employees and several former directors of L&T, Naik ceremoniously stepped down.
Honouring Naik’s larger-than-life industrial and philanthropic persona, India Post unveiled a postage stamp on him at the occasion. L&T’s former directors and Naik’s family members also unveiled the cover of his upcoming biography The Man Who Built Tomorrow which will be published by Harper Collins.
Naik’s attention going forward will be trained on his varied philanthropic initiatives including the Naik Charitable Trust which focuses on education and skill-building of the underprivileged, and the Nirali Memorial Medical Trust dedicated to facilitating super speciality healthcare at a subsidised cost.
Under the aegis of these two Trusts, Naik has built five hospitals, six schools and three wedding/thread ceremony halls in Gujarat and Mumbai, apart from adopting 40-odd schools, dramatically upgrading their infrastructure and learning environment.
Owing to Naik’s endeavours over the years, Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List named him as the country’s most generous corporate professional for three consecutive years.