Hinduja Group

Hinduja Group

Type	Private
Industry	Conglomerate
Founded	1914
Headquarters	London, UK
Key people	S P Hinduja (Chairman)
Products	Automotive, Banking, ITES, Commercial Vehicles, Lubricants and several others.
Employees	40,000+
Subsidiaries	Several.
Website	Official Website

The Hinduja Group is owned by Srichand Hinduja and his brother Gopichand Hinduja, more simply known as the Hinduja brothers for short. It was founded in 1914 by Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, initially operating in Mumbai, India, and setting up its first international operation in Iran in 1919. The headquarters of the Group moved to Iran where it remained until 1979, when the Islamic Revolution forced it to move to Europe. Srichand Hinduja and his brother Gopichand moved to London in 1979 to develop their father's export business.

Subsidiaries

The Hinduja Group incorporates:

• Ashok Leyland
• Gulf Oil
• Hinduja Bank Switzerland
• IndusInd Bank
• Hinduja Global Solutions (formerly named HTMT Global Solutions)
• Hinduja TMT
• Hinduja Ventures
• IndusInd Media and Communications Ltd.
• Hinduja Foundries
• P D Hinduja Hospital
• Defiance Technologies Limited

Ashok Leyland Ltd

The Hinduja Group bought into Ashok Leyland, India’s second largest HCV manufacturer,^[1] in 1987. It was the Group’s first foray into India.

The company has a large export market, including a 65% plus market share in Sri Lanka (in the 16 ton plus category) and also enjoys a similar market share in the bus segment in Dubai. During 2003-2005, the company executed an order of 3322 trucks for Iran under the UN’s oil and food programme, the largest ever in the Indian commercial vehicle industry.

The company is also a pioneer in CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) buses and special vehicles for the armed forces, both of which have opened up additional export opportunities for the company.^[2]

The company currently produces 84,000 vehicles per annum, with a target of 100,000 vehicles for the year. A new vehicle assembly plant - a joint venture with Ras Al Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA) is being prepared in the United Arab Emirates, which was projected to be onstream by March 2008....

The company is in the process of taking over the Detroit based "Defiance Testing & Engineering Services" (DTE), which supplies major American car manufacturers.

Ashok Leyland Defence

The Hinduja group has formed an independent company to spearhead its defence business. The Group plans to cash in on the growing global demand for defence products. Ashok Leyland Defence Systems Ltd., is the newly floated company by the Hinduja Group. Ashok Leyland, the flagship company of Hinduja group, holds 26 percent in the newly formed Ashok Leyland Defence Systems (ALDS), which has a mandate to design and develop defence logistics and tactical vehicles, defence communication and other systems. Dr V. Sumantran, Executive Vice Chairman, Hinduja Automotive Limited, heads the new venture.^[3] Ashok Leyland is the largest supplier of logistics vehicles to the Indian Army. It has supplied over 60,000 of its Stallion vehicles which form the Army's logistics backbone.^[4]

Gulf Oil Corporation Ltd

The chemical hub of the Hinduja Group was strengthened by the merger of Gulf Oil India Limited with IDL Industries Limited, which became effective from 1 January 2002. The merger enabled the Hinduja Group to consolidate its position in the Indian chemical segment.

The Company currently has four major operating Divisions:

• Commercial Explosives - handling explosives, detonators, explosive bonded metal clads and special devices for defense and space applications. Has eight plants in India, its Hyderabad plant being the largest detonator manufacturing facility in the world (192 million per annum). It is the largest exporter of explosives and detonators to 21 countries, including the Philippines and countries in South East Asia, North Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, and Southern Europe.
• Lubricants - lubricants, greases, and car accessories. Set up in 1993, and now the second largest private sector lubricant oil manufacturer in India.
• Mining and Infrastructure - undertakes large scale mining services in coal and iron ore, plus services to the infrastructure sector such as underground metro railways and national highways. Currently it is executing two large projects for Coal India Ltd. The Division has a major presence in the iron ore mining sector where it is working in very large mines rich in iron ore.
• Speciality Chemicals - manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients, intermediates, and finished forms such as tablets, capsules, injectables and liquids. Also undertakes contract research and development services. Manufacturing based in Hyderabad.

Gulf Oil International

Gulf Oil International, which operates from London offices, is one of the largest petroleum companies and petroleum product traders in the world, operating in more than 83 countries through a network of own companies, joint ventures, licensees, and distributors. It employs more than 3000 people directly worldwide, with indirect employment touching more than 30,000.

It has filling stations in most countries in Europe, parts of South America, and Indonesia. It also markets car batteries, car care products, vehicle air filters, lubrication machinery, and speciality chemicals in many countries. The company operates its exclusive Gulf Express chain of car service centres in Saudi Arabia and is planning to expand into Bahrain and other countries in the Middle East. It is also reported to be considering setting up a base oil refinery in India and a chain of service stations.

Gulf Oil International is also one of the biggest petroleum product traders in the world, with a large plant in China and expanding into the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific Region, with entries announced into Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and China, and massive expansion projects in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and India. It is an internationally accepted company

IndusInd Bank Ltd

IndusInd Bank is a leading private sector bank, and is the only Indian bank to have been founded by NRIs (Non-resident Indians), and the only commercial bank in India to receive ISO-9001:2000 certification for its branch network. It began its operation in 1994 with a capital of Rs 1 billion and with a focus on corporate and SME lending, and following its merger with Ashok Leyland Finance Ltd (ALFL) in 2004, has had an increasing emphasis on retail banking, and has grown into a bank with capital of Rs 10 billion and assets of around Rs 200 billion. It has a customer base in excess of 1.5 million and a network of 170 branches and 99 off-site ATMs (as on March 31, 2007) spread across 141 geographical locations pan India.

The Bank has representative overseas offices in Dubai and London, and correspondent banking relationships with 335 banks worldwide. In the recent past, the Bank has also entered into strategic alliances with Union National Bank in the United Arab Emirates and Doha Bank in Qatar to enhance its NRI business. The Bank’s national reach is extended further through its marketing arrangements for loan products through an associate firm, IndusInd Marketing and Financial Services, which has more than 745 marketing outlets across the country. The Bank has secured high domestic investment-grade ratings for its financial instruments from the local subsidiaries of S&P, Moody’s and Fitch.

Hinduja Foundries Ltd

Hinduja foundries is a five decades old, professionally managed company catering to the casting needs of the developing automobile OEMs in India. It has three manufacturing plants in operation in Southern India. Around 30 % of the vehicles rolled out in India (cars, commercial vehicles and tractors) have major castings supplied by the company. A modern new green field foundry was setup in Sriperumbudur near Chennai with a state-of-the-art R&D centre and starts its production in 2007.

The company has been growing at the rate of around 42% CAGR (Sales - 32 to 100 million $) during the last 5 years (2002-3 to 2006-7) in line with the growth of new emerging India and based on the projected growth of the auto components industry in India, has plans to grow at 35-40% CAGR (Sales 100 to 250 million $) during the next 4 years.

Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd.

Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd. (formerly HTMT Global Solutions) commenced its IT operations in 1993. It provides outsourcing solutions including Back office processing, contact center, and Customized IT services to a global clientele comprising several Fortune 500 companies. Hinduja Global Solutions began as an IT consulting firm specializing in providing solutions centered on a mainframe platform, in partnership with IBM. In 1995, the company entered corporate training in mainframes.

The company has over 14500 employees with offices in North America and London, and 19 delivery centers spread across Bangalore, Mysore, Mumbai, Nagercoil, Chennai, Durgapur, Siliguri and Hyderabad in India; Lyndhurst ^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Peoria, Illinois, St Louis, Waterloo, and El Paso in the United States; Montreal in Canada, Cyber City in Mauritius, and Manila in the Philippines.

The Contact Center & Back Office Services Division houses multiple international voice centers and back office processing units for leading Health Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, Life Sciences, Telecom, Banking and Financial Services, Consumer Electronics / Products, Technology, Automotive, Government, Media and Entertainment, Energy and Utilities and Transportation and Logistics companies.

HTMT’s recent acquisitions have made the company into one of the top Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies in India, with a customer base of over 65 clients and revenues of US$200 million. It is also one of the very few companies headquartered in India with global multiple delivery centers with a major presence in the US. Its Mauritius center supports the French-speaking population, and its Texas center provides support in Spanish.

InCablenet is one of the companies which come under the umbrella of Hinduja TMT or HTMT. It is part of its foray into Media and Communications.

P. D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre

The P. D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre is a modern multi-speciality tertiary care hospital with a medical research center set up in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston. The hospital has an inpatient capacity of over 350 beds including of 53 critical care beds in different specialties. As a tertiary care hospital, it offers services covering investigations and diagnosis to therapy, surgery, and post-operative care. It is the first tertiary care hospital to have been awarded the prestigious ISO 9002 certification from KEMA, Netherlands, for Quality management systems, and was recently awarded the prestigious "Golden Peacock Global Award" for philanthropy in emerging economies (2006).

The hospital has treated over 1.5 million outpatients, and performed over a million surgeries and over 7.5 million lab investigations. Its laboratory is the first hospital laboratory to be accredited by the College of American Pathologists.

Defiance Technologies Limited

Defiance Technologies, a Hinduja Group Company, is a leading provider of Engineering, ERP and IT services to global customers leveraging the Global Delivery Model. Founded in 1976 in USA, Defiance was later acquired by the Hinduja Group and has a long history of serving top global companies with over 120 global clients including 30 of the Fortune 500 companies. Headquartered at Chennai, India, Defiance has world class development centers at Chennai and Bangalore in India, and state-of-the-art testing facilities at Troy and Westland, Michigan. Defiance has business offices in USA, Europe, Middle East, South Africa and India.

Dr. V Sumantran is the Chairman and Mr. Subu D Subramaniam, the CEO and MD for Defiance Technologies Limited.

More details are available here^[5]

Hinduja Bank (Switzerland) Ltd

Hinduja Bank (Switzerland) Ltd was founded as a finance company in 1978 and became a Swiss regulated bank in 1994.

Hinduja Bank has its headquarters in Geneva and has a developed network in Switzerland including offices in Lucerne, Zurich, St Margrethen and Basle. Additionally it has a global presence in London, Dubai, Paris, New York, Mauritius and Chennai. Over the years, its businesses have expanded to include Wealth Management, Trade Finance Services, Global Investment Solutions and Corporate Finance Services. More details are available here^[6]

Controversy

Bofors scandal

Main article: Bofors scandal

Srichand, Gopichand and Prakash Hinduja have been connected with the investigation into the long-running Bofors scandal, in which Swedish firm Bofors was alleged to have paid illegal bribes to Government officials and politicians in connection with the $1.3bn sale of 400 howitzers to the Indian Government in 1986. The three brothers were charged by the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation in October 2000,^[7] but in 2005 the High Court in Delhi threw out all charges against them, citing a lack of evidence and saying that documents central to the prosecution case were "useless and dubious" since their provenance could not be verified. Judge RS Sodhi said: "I must express my disapproval that 14 years of trial and 2.5bn rupees ($57m) of public money was spent on the case. It has caused huge economical, emotional, professional and personal loss to the Hindujas."^[8]

2001 Hinduja affair

In January 2001, it was revealed that UK government Minister Peter Mandelson had telephoned Home Office minister Mike O'Brien on behalf of Srichand Hinduja, who was at the time seeking British citizenship, and whose family firm was to become the main sponsor of the "Faith Zone" in the Millennium Dome. Consequently, on 24 January 2001 Mandelson resigned from the Government for a second time,^[9][10] insisting he had done nothing wrong. An independent enquiry by Sir Anthony Hammond came to the conclusion that neither Mandelson nor anyone else had acted improperly.

In January 2001, immigration minister Barbara Roche revealed in a written Commons reply that Keith Vaz, Member of Parliament for Leicester East and at the time a Foreign Office minister, and other MPs, had also contacted the Home Office about the Hinduja brothers, saying that Vaz had made inquiries about when a decision on their application for citizenship could be expected.^[11]

On 25 January Vaz became the focus of Opposition questions about the Hinduja affair and many parliamentary questions were tabled, demanding that he fully disclose his role. Vaz said via a Foreign Office spokesman that he would be "fully prepared" to answer questions put to him by Sir Anthony Hammond QC who had been asked by the Prime Minister to carry out an inquiry into the affair. Vaz said that he had known the Hinduja brothers for some time; he had been present when the charitable Hinduja Foundation was set up in 1993, and had also delivered a speech in 1998 when the brothers invited Tony and Cherie Blair to a Diwali celebration.^[12]

On 26 January 2001, Prime Minister Tony Blair was accused of prejudicing the independent inquiry into the Hinduja passport affair, after he declared that Keith Vaz not done "anything wrong". On the same day, Vaz told reporters that they would "regret" their behaviour once the facts of the case were revealed. "Some of you are going to look very foolish when this report comes out. Some of the stuff you said about Peter, and about others and me, you'll regret very much when the facts come out," he said. When asked why the passport application of one of the Hinduja brothers had been processed more quickly than normal, being processed and sanctioned in six months when the process can take up to two years, he replied, "It is not unusual."^[13]

On 29 January, the government confirmed that the Hinduja Foundation had held a reception for Vaz in September 1999 to celebrate his appointment as the first Asian Minister in recent times. The party was not listed by Vaz in the House of Commons Register of Members' Interests and John Redwood, then head of the Conservative Parliamentary Campaigns Unit, questioned Vaz's judgement in accepting the hospitality.^[14]

In March Vaz was ordered to fully co-operate with a new inquiry launched into his financial affairs by Elizabeth Filkin. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, Vaz's superior, also urged him to fully answer allegations about his links with the Hinduja brothers. Mr Vaz met Mrs Filkin on 20 March to discuss a complaint that the Hinduja Foundation had given the sum of £1,200 to Mapesbury Communications, a company run by his wife, in return for helping to organise a Hinduja-sponsored reception at the House of Commons. Vaz had previously denied receiving money from the Hindujas, but insisted that he made no personal gain from the transaction in question.^[15][16]

In June 2001 Vaz admitted that he had made representations during the Hinduja brothers' applications for British citizenship while a backbench MP. Tony Blair also admitted that Vaz had "made representations" on behalf of other Asians.^[17] On 11 June 2001 Vaz was dismissed from his post as Europe Minister, to be replaced by Peter Hain. The Prime Minister's office said that Vaz had written to Tony Blair stating he wished to stand down for health reasons.^[18]

In December 2001 Elizabeth Filkin cleared Vaz of failing to register payments to his wife's law firm by the Hinduja brothers, but said that he had colluded with his wife to conceal the payments. Filkin's report said that the payments had been given to his wife for legal advice on immigration issues and concluded that Vaz had gained no direct personal benefit, and that Commons rules did not require him to disclose payments made to his wife. She did, however, criticise him for his secrecy, saying, "It is clear to me there has been deliberate collusion over many months between Mr Vaz and his wife to conceal this fact and to prevent me from obtaining accurate information about his possible financial relationship with the Hinduja family".^[19]

Ashok Leyland

In February 2005 Ashok Leyland, an India-based flagship company of the brothers' Hinduja Group, announced an agreement to supply 100 army vehicles to the Sudanese Defence Ministry. It was alleged by arms campaigner Mark Thomas that this contravened UK arms export legislation, as a number of the company's directors were UK residents or citizens.^[20]

References

1. ^ Retrieved 12 November 2008.
2. ^ Retrieved 12th November 2008
3. ^ [1] [2], Ashok Leyland Defence Systems
4. ^ Ashok Leyland largest supplier of logistics vehicles to Indian Army. Over 60,000 Stallions.[3]
5. ^ "Defiance Technologies - Leading Provider of Engineering, ERP and IT Services". Defiance-tech.com. http://www.defiance-tech.com. Retrieved 2010-08-16. 
6. ^ "Swiss Private Bank - Hinduja Bank (Switzerland) Ltd". Hinduja Bank. http://www.hindujabank.com. Retrieved 2010-08-16. 
7. ^ BBC News - Bofors charges against Hindujas
8. ^ BBC News - Q&A: Hinduja Bofors case
9. ^ "BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | Mandelson resigns over Hinduja affair". News.bbc.co.uk. 24 January 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1134819.stm. Retrieved 2008-10-03. 
10. ^ London Gazette: no. 56106. p. 1223. 31 January 2001. Retrieved 2008-10-21.
11. ^ Grice, Andrew (22 January 2001). "MPs to quiz Mandelson on passport for Hinduja". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-to-quiz-mandelson-on-passport-for-hinduja-702939.html. 
12. ^ Sengupta, Kim (26 January 2001). "Vaz sidesteps questions on links with Hindujas". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vaz-sidesteps-questions-on-links-with-hindujas-704370.html. 
13. ^ Waugh, Paul; Kim Sengupta (27 January 2001). "Vaz defiant over his role in Hinduja passport scandal". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vaz-defiant-over-his-role-in-hinduja-passport-scandal-704469.html. 
14. ^ Woolf, Marie (30 January 2001). "Hindujas held party to celebrate Vaz being appointed a minister". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hindujas-held-party-to-celebrate-vaz-being-appointed-a-minister-704847.html. 
15. ^ Woolf, Marie (22 March 2001). "Filkin launches new investigation into cash links between Vaz and Hindujas". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/filkin-launches-new-investigation-into-cash-links-between-vaz-and-hindujas-688445.html. 
16. ^ Grice, Andrew; Stephen Castle (24 March 2001). "Downing Street orders Vaz to help inquiry". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/downing-street-orders-vaz-to-help-inquiry-688728.html. 
17. ^ George, Jones; Womack, Sarah (19 June 2001), "Vaz admits greater role over Hinduja passport", The Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1319668/Vaz-admits-greater-role-over-Hinduja-passport.html 
18. ^ Woolf, Marie; Andrew Morris (12 June 2001). "After months of claims and counter claims, Vaz is finally sacked as Minister for Europe". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/after-months-of-claims-and-counter-claims-vaz-is-finally-sacked-as-minister-for-europe-673703.html. 
19. ^ Wintour, Patrick (24 December 2001). "Vaz cleared over Hinduja payments to wife". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/dec/24/houseofcommons.labour. 
20. ^ Quadripartite Committee - Memorandum from Mark Thomas