The phrase "you reap what you sow" is well-known. This saying came in handy for Babu George Valavi, who reportedly bought shares in a company 43 years ago, in 1978, that are today worth Rs 1,448 crore.
It all started when Valavi and four cousins purchased 3,500 shares of Mewar Oil and General Mills Ltd, an Udaipur-based unlisted company. Valavi worked as a distributor for the company in the 1970s and 1980s. He purchased the 3,500 shares, which equated to a 2.8 percent ownership in the company, thanks to his late brother's acquaintance with the company's founder and chairman, PP Singhal. Babu George Valavi had completely forgotten about the money he had invested.
He discovered that Mewar Oil and General Mills Ltd had renamed itself PI Industries, a publicly traded firm that was doing quite well financially. His son only discovered PI Industries in 2015, and requested the company's registrar to transfer the physical share certificates to a demat account. PI Industries' registrar was Karvy Consultants. So Valavi approached an agency to get his shares into a Demat account.
The agency, on the other hand, advised the family to contact the firm directly. When they did, the Valavi family had a rude awakening: they were informed that they were no longer shareholders and that their shares had been sold to others in 1989.
PI Industries sent its senior executives to meet with Valavi in Kochi a year after the claim was filed in 2015 to settle the issue after checking the original share certificates. He says the company acknowledged that the documents were authentic but no further communication was made.
The family had petitioned the stock market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) after obtaining no answer from the company. PI Industries, on the other hand, claimed in answer to SEBI's inquiry that the shares were transferred to other people in 1989.
Babu alleges that certain high executives may have committed fraud by transferring the shares without the knowledge of the company's top management. He recently stated to a leading daily that the SEBI probe is still ongoing and that he is optimistic. Babu and his family's original shareholding in PI Industries are now worth 42.8 lakh shares, which, at current market valuations, should be worth Rs 1,448 crore.
