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Corporate Group

Murugappa Group

Headquartered in Chennai, the Rs. 15,907 crores (USD 3.14 billion) Murugappa Group is one of India's leading business conglomerates. Market leaders in diverse areas of business including Engineering, Abrasives, Finance, General Insurance, Cycles, Sugar, Farm Inputs, Fertilizers, Plantations, Bio-products and Nutraceuticals, its 29 companies have manufacturing facilities spread across 13 states in India. The organization fosters an environment of professionalism and has a workforce of over 32,000 employees. The Group has forged strong joint venture alliances with leading international companies like DBS Bank, Mitsui Sumitomo, Foskor, Cargill and Groupe Chimique Tunisien has consolidated its status as one of the fastest growing diversified business houses in India.

The business has its origins in 1900, when Dewan Bahadur A M Murugappa Chettiar established a money-lending and banking business in Burma (now Myanmar), which then spread to Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Vietnam. A century down the line, it has withstood enormous vicissitudes (including strategically moving its assets back to India and restarting from scratch in the '30s, before the Japanese invasion in World War II) to become one of the country's biggest industrial houses.

Some of the country's best-known brands like BSA and Hercules in bicycles, Parrys Spirulina and Parrys Beta Carotene in nutraceuticals, Parrys Pure in sugar, Carborundum and Ajax in abrasives, Gromor and Paramfos in fertilisers, and many more come from the Murugappa Group. Focussing on its research and development innovations, it has registered 43 international patents.

The group has grown consistently through its decisive and visionary response to changing times. Its pioneering efforts, steadfast commitment to ethical business practices and its dogged pursuit of new areas to extend its business acumen have brought in its wake several prestigious national and international awards. Social commitment has always been the cornerstone of the group's ethos and it has been at the forefront of eco-conservation, public health, and education in the communities where its companies operate. It runs several educational and health care institutions on charitable lines. Besides, the group runs a research and development centre for rural development, the Sri AMM Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre (MCRC), which has been designing simple, cost-effective technologies for local artisans.

The group is also the first business group in Asia to have been awarded the 'IMD Distinguished Family Business Award' by the internationally renowned Management Development Institute located in Lausanne, Switzerland.