On 9 October 2026, The Economic Times reported that the family of Venu Srinivasan, chairman emeritus of TVS Motor Company, disagrees about how its businesses have been divided between his two children. His son, Sudarshan Venu, runs TVS Motor. His daughter, Lakshmi Venu, runs Sundaram-Clayton, a maker of aluminium and magnesium castings. The question at the centre is easy to state and hard to answer: when a family agrees who will run which company, has it also agreed who owns what?
A word on sourcing first. The Economic Times story rests on people close to each side, speaking without their names. BusinessLine and the news agency PTI have published similar accounts, also from unnamed sources. No family member has commented on the record, and no court case has been reported. PTI said the TVS group did not respond to its email before publication. Everything below about the family’s positions should be read as “reportedly.”
The family and the companies
The TVS group was founded by T. V. Sundaram Iyengar more than a century ago and grew into dozens of companies run by different branches of his family. In December 2020 the branches signed a family arrangement to separate their holdings, and Venu Srinivasan’s branch took over the family holding companies’ stake in Sundaram-Clayton, which in turn controlled TVS Motor. According to PTI, that settlement valued the assets, divided them on agreed terms and compensated family members.
Inside Venu Srinivasan’s branch, the main listed pieces today are:
- TVS Holdings, the holding company (the old Sundaram-Clayton, renamed in 2023), which owns 50.26% of TVS Motor;
- TVS Motor, the two- and three-wheeler maker;
- Sundaram-Clayton, the castings business, which was split off into a new company and listed on 29 December 2023.
The March 2024 memorandum
On 22 March 2024, TVS Holdings told the stock exchanges that Venu Srinivasan, his wife Mallika Srinivasan, Lakshmi Venu and Sudarshan Venu had signed a memorandum of understanding, completed on 21 March. According to the filing, Sudarshan Venu agreed not to use the TVS brand in castings and not to compete, for a set period, in areas including tractors and farm equipment. Mallika Srinivasan and Lakshmi Venu agreed not to use the TVS brand in two- and three-wheelers, financial services and real estate, and not to compete in two- and three-wheelers. The filing does not mention share transfers or valuations, and the company said its business was not adversely affected.
Two readings of one document
According to people familiar with the position of Venu Srinivasan and Sudarshan Venu, the memorandum, together with the 2020 settlement, formalised a division: TVS Holdings and TVS Motor to Sudarshan, Sundaram-Clayton to Lakshmi. In their view, the arrangement was based on valuations and has been carried out.
According to sources close to Mallika Srinivasan and Lakshmi Venu, the memorandum covered only brand use and non-competition, not ownership, and both children keep equal rights to Venu Srinivasan’s family wealth. Their argument, as reported, is that management roles do not automatically turn into ownership. BusinessLine said it had reviewed the memorandum and found no financial settlement in it. Reports say the disagreement surfaced in April 2025, after a TVS Holdings filing named Sudarshan Venu a significant beneficial owner through trust structures.
The Economic Times reported that the disagreement has run for nearly 18 months and that attempts at mediation have failed. BusinessLine reported that Mallika Srinivasan favours a neutral mediator and that Lakshmi Venu is not pursuing legal action for now.
How far apart the values moved
At the close on 9 October 2026, by our check of market data:
- TVS Motor was worth about ₹1.84 trillion (₹1.84 lakh crore);
- TVS Holdings, which owns just over half of it, about ₹23,000 crore (₹230 billion);
- Sundaram-Clayton about ₹2,700 crore (₹27 billion).
At the end of 2023, Sundaram-Clayton’s first day of trading and three months before the memorandum, TVS Motor was worth about ₹962 billion (₹96,200 crore) and Sundaram-Clayton about ₹31 billion (₹3,100 crore). Since then TVS Motor has nearly doubled, TVS Holdings has risen by about half, and Sundaram-Clayton is about 12% lower. Some reports put Sundaram-Clayton’s value at about ₹24,000 crore; we could not match that figure with market data.
The general lesson: divide value, not only companies
Splitting a family business by company is common, and often sensible: each heir runs what they know. The trouble is that a company is not a fixed sum of money. If one grows and another does not, a split that looked fair on the day can look very unequal a few years later. And if the paperwork never recorded what each side was receiving in value, each side can read the same document differently.
Families that divide businesses can reduce this risk in a few ways. They record values on the date of the split. They say plainly whether the split is final or whether there will be a later adjustment. If there will be one, they agree how it works, for example cash payments or share swaps within a set period. They state who owns the shares, not only who manages the company. And they name a mediator or arbitrator in advance. We covered why written rules matter in five common mistakes in managing family wealth.
A fair caveat
We have seen only the public summary of the memorandum, not its full text, and the family’s positions come from unnamed sources. Market values change daily, and the family’s unlisted interests are not in these numbers. Which reading is right is a legal question that only the family, a mediator or a court can settle. We take no side.
Five lessons to take away
- Running a company is not owning it. Write down both, separately.
- Put numbers on the split. Record what each part was worth on the day.
- Decide in advance whether values will be revisited. “Final” and “subject to adjustment” can both work; silence does not.
- Make each document say what it is. Nobody should have to guess whether a brand agreement is also a settlement.
- Agree how disputes will be resolved before there is one. A named mediator is cheaper than a lawsuit.
Questions to bring to your advisors
If we divided our businesses among our children today, how would we value each part, and what would happen if one later grew much faster than the others? Does our paperwork say who owns the shares as well as who runs the companies? Is the split final, or is there a way to revisit it? These are questions to bring to your advisors, not advice.