The Indian TVS business is in crisis, split into factions with father and son separate and mother and daughter separate.

TVS Group, one of India's leading business empires, is currently facing a massive family crisis.

This is not merely a question of who should hold corporate management, but a serious struggle over generational wealth and its true economic ownership.Due to this dispute, Venu Srinivasan, the 73-year-old Chairman Emeritus of TVS Motor Company, and his 37-year-old son Sudarshan Venu are one party, while Venu's 66-year-old wife Mallika Srinivasan and their 42-43-year-old daughter Lakshmi Venu form the other party, divided into two factions.

The TVS business, started in 1911 as a bus service in Madurai by T.V. Sundaram Iyengar, a lawyer turned banker, later expanded into a vast network of companies. In December 2020, a family memorandum of understanding between its third and fourth generations led to a division of businesses under four main branches. Venu Srinivasan's (VS) branch received the main automotive businesses, including TVS Holdings, TVS Credit, and Sundaram-Clayton, along with a funding responsibility of approximately 2,000 crore rupees.

This family crisis publicly emerged in April 2025 through a report submitted to the Registrar of Companies and the stock exchange. The reason was the naming of Sudarshan Venu as the Significant Beneficial Owner of TVS Holdings, which holds between 50% and 56% ownership of TVS Motor Company, through the V.S. Trust and Srinivasan Trust. The V.S. Trust, through Venu Srinivasan, its sole trustee, currently controls 66.55% of TVS Holdings shares. The total family-owned shares in TVS Holdings amount to 74.45%, with the Srinivasan Trust holding 3.07% and other family entities holding 3.74%. Mallika and Lakshmi hold only 0.29% and 0.82% of shares respectively. Lakshmi's side viewed this step not merely as an administrative process, but as a direct transfer of ownership. Attempts at mediation failed as their requests for dialogue and transparency were met with silence, and there is now a risk of legal action.

At the heart of the crisis is the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the four family members on March 20 and 21, 2024. Venu and Sudarshan, a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum who will assume the chairmanship of TVS Motor from August 2025, consider that this agreement officially confirms the division of assets. According to their stance, Sudarshan will receive the main businesses, including TVS Motor and TVS Holdings, while Lakshmi, who divorced Rohan Murthy, son of the Infosys founder, in 2015 and later married Mahesh Gogineni, will inherit Sundaram-Clayton from her father's side and the succession of TAFE from her mother's side. Venu has stated that he has the right to distribute assets as he deems fit for the good of the family and the business, and that the next generation should gain full ownership at a young age.

However, Mallika, a graduate of Wharton Business School, and Lakshmi, educated at Yale and Warwick Universities, strongly reject this position. Following a report in the Mint newspaper and speaking to media outlets including CNBC-TV18 on October 12-13, 2026, they emphasized that Venu Srinivasan has not yet reached any economic agreement within the family. According to Mallika, the 2024 agreement only covers the use of brand names such as "TVS" and "Sundaram," management, and non-compete obligations. They point out that management responsibilities do not equate to economic ownership, and the idea that assets can be unilaterally distributed to a single individual is neither agreed upon nor confirmed.

This dispute is further intensified by the enormous disparity in the values of the business entities proposed to be given to the two children. By mid-October 2026, TVS Motor Company's market capitalization was approximately 1.87 trillion rupees, with revenue of 56,000 crore rupees and a profit of about 3,700 crore rupees.