Welcome to another Friday, chief!

In today’s edition — Heirs are stepping away from family businesses. They’re not being rebellious; it’s just a matter of choosing a life beyond a business legacy. Their autonomous move is turning out to be good news for investors, primarily for two reasons: one, there’s no more uncertainty over succession; and two, the day-to-day affairs of the company go into the hands of professionals.

All’s Well When Heirs Don’t Loom

Vishwas Ved

There was a time when succession meant one thing: the legal heirs took over, the CFO updated the organisation chart, and we all pretended the transition was strategic.

But that tidy setup is slowly breaking apart because heirs to several business empires in the country are opting out.

Across India Inc, heirs aren’t just handing over control; they’re proudly walking away entirely from balance sheets and boardrooms.

Some want to create music, others launch something of their own, while some run beauty brands or NGOs. In short, they choose life beyond their family business.

Looking Beyond Bloodline

Direct heirs have been moving away from family businesses for a while now, but the chatter around the subject picked up steam about a fortnight ago because of what transpired at VIP Industries.

After over five decades in charge, Dilip Piramal agreed to sell a roughly 32% stake to a consortium led by private equity giant Multiples Alternate Asset Management. This happened because the heir-apparent, Piramal’s daughter Radhika, who served as MD until 2017, stepped back and relocated abroad.

Shortly after the deal became public, the company’s stock first dipped and then sharply pulled back as investors not only endorsed a transition to professional ownership, but also seemed to agree with Piramal's reflective and maybe a little poetic statement: “It was good for the company.” With that, the man who ran VIP Industries packed his bags after ruling the market for about 53 years. 

Piramal is not alone: the heirs are stepping back elsewhere as well.

In 2015, Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal made it clear that his sons and daughter were pursuing separate ventures, and therefore he passed the reins to professional CEOs. 

And Tata Sons finally shifted from insider succession to professional leadership — first under Cyrus Mistry and then under N Chandrasekaran. The company then went on to make inroads into EVs, aviation, semiconductors, and more.

What Happens When They Go

When the heirs of a business step aside, investors often breathe a sigh of relief, and sometimes the company begins the most profitable journey.

This isn’t new. History offers similar examples. Let’s go back a few decades to Gucci and Ford Motor.

In the early ’90s, after years of internal feuds, tax scandals, and failing business decisions by the founding family, Maurizio Gucci, the last family member to run the brand, finally sold his stake. 

After he left, Bahrain-based Investcorp brought in professional managers. One of them was Tom Ford, known for his bold vision and world-class marketing. 

The turnaround was dramatic. When Gucci eventually listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1995, it was valued at over $1 billion, up sharply from its dire days. 

Later, it was acquired by PPR (now Kering). The brand’s valuation soared, and it hasn’t looked back since.

Ford Motor Company offers another example.

While the Ford family still has the voting power, they’ve largely stepped away from day-to-day operations. The biggest turning point came in 2006, when the board brought in a new CEO, Alan Mulally, from Boeing. He wasn’t an automobile guy, but he was exactly what the company needed to survive.

He simplified the product line, cut costs, mortgaged the Blue Oval logo to raise capital, and steered the company through the 2008 financial crisis without needing a bailout.

Reinvention, Not Rebellion

Back in India, the shift feels less like rebellion and more like realignment.

Kavin Bharti Mittal took a similar route. Rather than join Airtel, the telecom giant built by his father, he launched Hike Messenger. 

It’s a different thing that Hike didn’t last because WhatsApp dominated the space. But he’s now pivoted to Web3 gaming. His latest venture, Rush Gaming Universe, is part of a completely different playbook.

Then there are the Birlas. Ananya started a microfinance firm focused on rural women and later pivoted to music and mental health initiatives. Aryaman chose professional cricket. 

The family name remains, but the paths are personal.

Final Words

What ties these stories together is the advantages of letting the market know clearly what the succession plans are.

When heirs step away, businesses often bring in private equity, new management, or strategic investors. And that triggers a new phase. Sometimes leaner, sharper, and more valuable.

That’s what happened with VIP.

Whether it’s fashion in Italy, cars in Detroit, or luggage in Mumbai, the pattern holds. Once the shadow of inheritance clears and clarity on succession emerges, companies tend to see the numbers more clearly too..

$16.5 Billion

The value of the deal Tesla has signed with Samsung to get its next-generation chips. Tesla’s AI6 chip is the company’s bet on an all-in-one chip design that can scale from powering its driver assistance system known as Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots. The deal is a boost for Samsung, which struggled to get its chip-making project off the ground after failing to attract and retain major clients. Musk said in another post that Tesla may end up spending more than $16.5 billion on Samsung chips.

—Trump ends $800 duty-free rule. US President Donald Trump has ordered an end to the $800 duty-free exemption on imports, a sweeping trade enforcement move that targets Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu. The new rule, effective August 29, will eliminate tariff-free entry for low-value goods, disrupting billions in cross-border sales and affecting millions of US online shoppers. The executive order, signed Wednesday, suspends the long-standing 'de minimis' exemption that allowed imports under $800 to enter duty-free.

—Neuralink enables paralysed woman to write, draw. Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain implant has enabled a woman, Audrey Crews, paralysed for two decades, to control a computer using her thoughts. She shared posts on her X account, showing her first attempt to write her name through mental commands. The technology used in this process is known as a brain-computer interface. In another post, she shared some pictures of doodles she made the same way.

—Alibaba previews its first AI-powered glasses. Alibaba Group Holding has entered the fierce smart glasses race in China, previewing its first pair of AI-powered glasses at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference — the country’s largest annual AI event — at Shanghai. The Quark AI glasses, named after Alibaba’s AI assistant, were showcased to the public for the first time last week. The company said it had completed development of the product and was aiming for a launch this year.

—Google is using AI to restrict underage users. Google will soon cast an even wider net with its AI age estimation technology. After announcing plans to find and restrict underage users on YouTube, the company now says it will start detecting whether Google users based in the US are under 18. Age estimation is rolling out over the next few weeks and will only impact a small set of users to start, though Google plans on expanding it more widely. The company will use a user’s YouTube search information to determine their age..

ICYMI | GST Closes a Door, Court Opens One

Missed last week's update? The GST department just flipped the switch on GSTR-3B. Starting this month, you cannot manually edit any data at the filing stage. However, in a different case, the Bombay High Court reminded the tax department that logic can still supersede rigid rules. 

Meanwhile, we reliably learn that there is a reason ultra rich people don’t use curtains. And it’s simpler and more straightforward than you think.

Was this email forwarded to you?

The CFO Weekly Digest is a weekly newsletter brought to you in collaboration with The Core.