The sudden death of a billionaire from swallowing a bee has resulted in succession uncertainty at one of the largest automotive component businesses in the world.
Indian billionaire Sunjay Kapur was the heir to Sona Comstar a £2.7bn manufacturer founded by his father. He is alleged to have swallowed a bee while playing polo in Surrey and died from a heart attack in June.
Mr Kapur’s death has triggered a succession battle at the business between the late businessman’s mother, Rani Kapur, who initially claimed her son’s death was suspicious, and the company’s board of directors.
Rani Kapur has claimed the company has exploited the family’s mourning to “wrest control and usurp the family legacy”, and indicated she had been “forced to sign documents behind locked doors” while under emotional distress in a letter to India’s market regulator. She also claimed to have lost access to her bank accounts.
The Sona Comstar board had appointed a new chairman just weeks before Mr Kapur’s death, an appointment Rani Kapur says the family had not approved of. She added her husband – Mr Kapur’s father, who died in 2015 – had made her the sole beneficiary of his estate and also a majority shareholder of the Sona Group.
However in a regulatory filing Sona Comstar said Ms Kapur had not been a shareholder since at least 2019, contradicting her claim. The company has also moved to strengthen its position with the appointment of Mr Kapur’s wife, Priya Sachdev, as a non-executive director.
Rani Kapur claims the board is trying to take control of the business away from the Kapur family; with the dispute seeing Sunjay Kapur’s estranged sister Mandhira Kapur post on Instagram in support of the family.
“It quite clearly reinforces what she’s been saying, that her entire legacy is being usurped and no one is willing to look into the cause of death,”
the senior advocate Vaibhav Gaggar, who represents Ms Kapur, told The Telegraph.
“It may all be very well interlinked and she has quite unequivocally said there is a conspiracy behind her son’s death.”
