After 50 years at the helm, Rahul Bajaj steps down from executive role

After many a long time at the helm, Bajaj group patriarch Rahul Bajaj will step down as chairman of the holding business, Bajaj Holdings & Investments, Bajaj Automobile, and Bajaj Finserv.

Bajaj Automobile, the maker of the Pulsar manufacturer of motorcycles and RE three-wheelers, explained on Thursday that the 81-12 months-aged business enterprise leader, who has been a complete-time director and chairman of the auto generating arm since April one, 1970, would choose a non-govt part.

He oversaw the effective transition of Bajaj Automobile from the ‘Hamara Bajaj’ times by way of its well-known Chetak manufacturer of scooters to the World’s Favorite Indian — Bajaj now sells its motorcycles in more than 70 nations. Bajaj, who performed an active part in the affairs of the business until 2005, took a backseat in group corporations, passing on the baton to the elder son, Rajiv Bajaj, for the automobile business enterprise, and for the money providers business enterprise to the younger son, Sanjiv Bajaj.

Bajaj’s resignation from the top rated write-up arrives in opposition to the backdrop of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) rule that phone calls for a separation of the posts of chairman and taking care of director of top rated five hundred outlined corporations. It also claims the chairperson of a company’s board should really be a non-govt director and should really not be connected to the MD or CEO. The rule has now been deferred by two several years.

“The tenure of appointment of Rahul Bajaj as govt chairman is expiring on March 31, 2020. Due to specified commitments and other preoccupation, Bajaj has determined not to proceed as a complete-time director of the business just after the expiry of his present time period on March 31, 2020,” the business explained in a notification to the stock exchanges on Thursday.

The business will search for shareholders’ approval by way of a specific resolution, it explained. On Wednesday, Bajaj Finserv, the group’s money providers business enterprise, also notified Bajaj’s resignation as chairman, like from subsidiaries Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Allianz Basic Insurance plan.

Preferred for his plain talk and severe critique of the government’s guidelines since the pre-liberalisation period, the Padma Bhushan awardee is a Harvard Business enterprise Faculty alumnus. He is known in corporate circles as the person who does not mince phrases when it arrives to any matter of countrywide curiosity, or echoing corporate India’s woes. On November thirty, 2019, at an awards party organised by the Financial Situations in Mumbai, Rahul Bajaj explained he was “born anti-establishment”.

In the 1970s, when Italy’s Piaggio didn’t renew Bajaj’s licence, he began manufacturing his have manufacturer of scooters with names like Chetak and Super.