India is a country where several billionaires have donated crores for philanthropic work. The list includes Wipro's Azim Premji, late industrialist Ratan Tata and more. Now, taking inspiration from the Tata family, another business tycoon has decided to give Rs 20,000 crore for philanthropic initiatives. He is Abhishek Lodha, a real estate tycoon, whose family and he, have pledged to transfer shares worth around Rs 20,000 crore in their listed entity Macrotech Developers to the group's philanthropic initiative.
Abhishek leads Macrotech Developers Ltd (MDL), one of the leading real estate developers in the country, as MD and CEO. His company sells properties under the Lodha brand. It currently has a market capitalisation of over Rs 1.10 lakh crore. The promoters own a 72.11 per cent stake in it.
As part of their initiative, Abhishek Lodha and family will transfer about 18-19 per cent stake in Macrotech Developers to Lodha Philanthropy Foundation (LPF), a non-profit organisation that uses all its income and assets solely for national and social causes.
"We will soon be transferring shares worth Rs 20,000 crore of MDL to the foundation. An advisory board will be set up in January next year to manage the social initiatives," MDL MD and CEO Abhishek Lodha told PTI.
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LPF will carry out various social initiatives such as programmes in education, women's empowerment, and sustainable urbanisation, through the dividend income generated from these shares. Under the new arrangement, "LPF will have an initial corpus of around Rs 20,000 crore (USD 2.5 billion)".
On the family's decision to allocate a significant portion of their wealth to national and social causes, Lodha said, "About 100 years ago, the Tata family gave a major part of their shareholding in their enterprise to the Tata Trusts. The huge impact of this gift on India and the good work by the Tata Trusts has been a major inspiration for me".
Started in 2013, LFP runs various programmes, mostly in the social sector, including 'Lodha Unnati', which focuses on increasing female participation in India's workforce by working with corporates in India.
(With inputs from PTI)
