When MAM Ramaswamy sat beside his cousin, tapped his hand and effectively declared his intention to make him the custodian of his fortune last week, he signalled the end of a spat that had spanned more than a decade.
For, before he fell out with his adopted and now disowned son, he was involved in a longer, but far quieter falling out with the man at the helm of SPIC — AC Muthiah.
The cousins spent the last half of the last century as young men growing up playing polo together to bickering over a series of small but persistent squabbles and misunderstandings. Family sources say that there were occasions when the two were barely on speaking terms. The first hiccup came when the Ramaswamy’s father MA Muthiah passed away in 1974. With Ramaswamy’s elder brother having passed away four years earlier, he believed that the control of several trusts, including the one in control of Annamalai University, with their substantial assets should pass to him.
However, family sources say that there was a complication. “MA Muthiah’s brother and Ramaswamy’s uncle, MA Chidambaram, was still alive at that time and was the eldest living male in the family,” says a family source. There ensued a brief tussle with Ramaswamy coming away the better and firmly in control.
But while that may have been the first step towards the heights of their spat in the early 90s, the main issue involved see-sawing business fortunes. “The root of their problem lay in business interests. There might have been a few misunderstandings on the personal front, but it was mainly business,” says an industrialist from the community.
The 80s, until 1989, were glory years for AC Muthiah and his group. He was close to the reigning government and saw fortunes rise, say sources. In contrast, Ramaswamy’s business interests did not do as well for the exact opposite reason — he was in high disfavour with the establishment. What’s more, they abolished horse racing — a stinging blow to a man who himself admits that his “race horses are the most important thing in the world”.
The cards were flipped, however, in 1989. Ramaswamy got a breather with a few coal handling contracts for TNEB. For his cousin, the 1989-1991 period was not so kind. His distillery business, through Southern Agrifurnane, saw intense pressure from authorities bent on breaking up the liquor lobby. “AC Muthiah was removed from the chairmanship of the company and an FIR was filed for mismanagement of the liquor bottling company,” reveals a source.SPIC was also involved in a controversy where the controlling group, that of AC Muthiah and MA Chidambaram, was called out by fellow stakeholder TIDCO for holding disproportional representation on the board.
The change of government in 1991 removed overt political harassment for both cousins — Ramaswamy retained his coal handling tenders and Muthiah got a respite. However, AC Muthiah’s companies continued along the downward path set for them in 1989.
“SPIC was even then showing the first signs of trouble that would cripple it in the 2000s. The next seven or eight years saw conditions worsen for ACM. He promoted a petro venture, SPIC Petro that tanked in 1996 due to legal issues,” recall sources.
Those very same years though, also laid the groundwork for what family members and sources in the industry call a patch up of differences. Ashwin Muthiah, ACM’s son, had started getting involved in the management of the group. “Ashwin is quite close to Ramaswamy. And the latter likes him quite a lot,” reveals the family source. As Ashwin Muthiah began expanding his responsibilities, ACM began letting go of some companies, including the sugar and distillery businesses, and began taking a backseat.
“Once business interests, which were at the core of most of their problems, began seeming less important, the intensity of the spat lessened. Ashwin’s closeness with his uncle also helped in normalising the relationship. There wasn’t much bad feeling by the time Ramaswamy’s wife passed away,” says a family member.
The two burying the hatchet, however, did not prove as good a thing to Ramaswamy’s adopted son, who was also largely in control of the Chettinad Group by then. “When Ramaswamy and Ayyapan’s spat started getting serious, the community took Ramaswamy’s side — and prominent among them was his cousin AC Muthiah,” say sources.
Sources also say that MAMR Muthiah, or Ayyapan, as Ramaswamy wants him to be known now, was miffed at rumours that ACM and Ramaswamy had come to an agreement where the trusts managed by the company would come down to Ashwin Muthiah and not him. Whatever be the legal position of the implied custodianship — experts say that it could be a long and complicated case if Muthiah chooses to fight it — the fact remains that Tuesday’s announcement by Ramaswamy confirms the reconciliation of the two branches of the family. Blood, after all, is thicker than water.