Meet Virendra Singh Chauhan, the mystery man who owns one share in Tata Group

A strange mystery came to light when the list of Tata Sons shareholders was revealed a few years ago. A mystery man named Virendra Singh Chauhan owned one solitary share in the Tata group's parent company Tata Sons. The company's official shareholding data as of March 2023 still lists Maharawal Virendrasinhji Chauhan as the owner of one share. He was the king of the small princely state of Chota Udaipur in Gujarat. Although he passed away in 2005, his heirs still have a claim to this solitary share.

Meet Virendra Singh Chauhan, The Mystery Man With One Tata Group Share

A total of 8,235 shares were owned by members of the Tata family, 49,365 shares by various Tata companies, 74,352 shares by the Shapoorji Pallonji family, and 266,610 shares by the Tata Trusts. However, in all of these substantial shareholdings, there was one single, unique share that belonged to Virendra Singh Chauhan of Chota Udaipur, as per Scroll report.

Who was this unidentified person, and how did he come to possess this single Tata Sons share? It was an unlisted company, after all, and only a select group of Tata insiders held shares in it.

Even the Shapoorji Pallonji family was viewed as an outsider, and the Tata family viewed their acquisition of Tata Sons shares through a series of covert agreements as a "intrusion." Obviously, all of this had an intriguing backstory. However, no one appeared to be aware of its nature.

Nobody was aware of the identity of Chota Udaipur's Virendra Singh Chauhan or how he came to own his Tata Sons shareholding. To further compound the enigma, there was the perplexing inquiry as to why he held only that one share.

Meet Virendra Singh Chauhan, the mystery man who owns one share in Tata Group | Scroll

To try and unravel this mystery, I started posing questions. However, it was annoying that those who ought to be aware of the solutions were unwilling to discuss them, possibly because the topic was contentious at the time the corporate conflict was still going strong. Eventually, though, everything started to fit together.

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His Real Name Is Maharawal Virendrasinhji Natwarsinhji Chauhan

Virendra Singh Chauhan of Chota Udaipur's real name was Maharawal Virendrasinhji Natwarsinhji Chauhan, as per the report. A small princely state in Gujarat called Chota Udaipur was governed by Prithviraj Chauhan's descendants. Its rulers, known as maharawals, were patrons of the arts and architecture.

The 1930s ruler Maharawal Natwarsinhji was clearly a man of the world, respected by his contemporaries for, among other things, the special 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom he had had custom-built for himself. Its gilded interior was intended to resemble a railway saloon, giving the impression that one was traveling by train. The car's rear was equipped with a second dashboard that was especially placed there so the royal passengers could monitor the vehicle's mileage and speed.

When Maharawal Natwarsinhji unexpectedly passed away in 1946 while on vacation in Lisbon, the title was inherited by his 11-year-old son, Virendrasinhji. Thus, Virendrasinhji was only a minor during the turbulent period in 1947 when Chota Udaipur was integrated into independent India along with the other princely states.

After attending Daly College, Indore, which was established for the princelings of Central India, he went on to acquire an uncommon sense of business acumen. Virendrasinhji is referred to as a ¡°industrialist¡± in a 1962 issue of the Economic Weekly and is listed as a director of National Ekco, a Tata company founded to manufacture radios. Amazingly, he was only 25 years old at the time. It just so happened that Ratan Tata, who was still only an apprentice at Tata Steel, was also 25 years old at the time and was learning how to use the blast furnace and shovel limestone.

Over time, Virendrasinhji rose to the position of director of a number of businesses, serving on boards alongside notable businessmen and industrialists of the era such as Hasham Premji (father of Azim Premji), SS Kirloskar, BM Ghia, MS Talaulicar, Navroz B. Vakil, and the Maharaja of Baroda. More importantly, though, was that Virendrasinhji joined the Tata Mills board of directors in his early 30s, under the direction of Ratan Tata's father, Naval Tata. Along with other Tata family members, he sat on company boards, and as a result, he developed into a reliable insider over time.

Virendrasinhji's roles as a socialite, bon vivant, lover of horses, billiards, racing, cricket, and membership in a number of clubs in Mumbai and London all contributed to his role as a company director. He was given a privy purse worth Rs 212,000 annually, which was a very large amount at a time when the average yearly salary for a managing director of a company was Rs 42,000. Up until the 1971 repeal of princely privileges, he was also included in The Royalty, Peerage and Aristocracy of the World.

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JRD Tata Had Given 12-13 Tata Shares To Him

So, how did he come to be the owner of that one enigmatic Tata Sons share?

Because of his close relationship with JRD Tata, Virendrasinhji was given "twelve or thirteen" shares in Tata Sons, according to his son Jai Pratap Sinhji, sometime in the 1980s. The son does not know the specifics of the transaction, nor does he know how many shares were purchased. However, it was most likely a part of an internal cleaning out process, which occasionally occurs in unlisted businesses when a block of shares becomes available and someone trustworthy is needed to take control of them. Virendrasinhji was chosen for this task, which was a testament to the Tatas' faith in him. On the other hand, his ability to own those shares was a matter of prestige.

Why Only One Tata Group Share Is Left In His Name?

Coincidentally, it was an investment that would turn out to be a massive multibagger in the future. Virendrasinhji was given "twelve or thirteen" shares of Tata Sons, so why does the company's record now indicate that he only has one share?

His son claims that in 1998, Virendrasinhji sold his Tata Sons shares to help raise the money needed to establish a clothing manufacturing company in Bengaluru. However, he exercised caution and held onto one share, ensuring that he would always enjoy the unique opportunity of owning a stake in Tata Sons. The act appeared to embody the Latin maxim "Memoria manet," which translates to "The memory remains," which is displayed on the Chota Udaipur coat of arms.

Of course, the other enigma is this: if Virendrasinhji passed away in 2005, then why does Tata Sons' records still list that one share as being in his name?

It appears that the Chota Udaipur family has been embroiled in some sort of conflict regarding the succession to the title ever since Virendrasinhji's passing. For reasons they would prefer not to discuss in public, some members of the family appear to have supported his youngest brother Aishwarya Pratap Sinhji's claim to the title, even though it should have normally passed to his eldest son Jai Pratap Sinhji. Along with several other assets, the ownership of Virendrasinhji's single Tata Sons share is also under dispute as a result of this disagreement.

(The fact that Jai Pratap Sinhji believes the Chota Udaipur family still owns "four or five shares" in the company, although he is unsure, reflects the confusion within the family.) Official records clearly state that the Chota Udaipur family owns one single Tata Sons share, a fact that would presumably stick unambiguously in one's mind.

Due to this contested ownership of the share, the Chota Udaipur holder was meticulously recorded as abstaining during the crucial February shareholder vote on the Cyrus Mistry issue.

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