Jayadev Galla is credited with turning Amara Raja Batteries into a formidable battery company. He came from nowhere, exhibited amazing entrepreneurial skill, challenged the incumbent Exide Batteries and turned Amara Raja Batteries into a powerhouse with a market cap of Rs. 6500 crore. The history about how this happened in given in this article.
Jayadev Galla joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) & used excellent managerial skills while campaigning for the elections. He got superstar Mahesh Babu to campaign for him. Mahesh Babu is the Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikant of Andhra Pradesh. He is also Jayadev’s brother-in-law. His support for Jayadev meant that it was a smooth cakewalk for Jayadev.
Jayadev Galla has won the Guntur Lok Sabha seat with a majority of over 70,000 votes over Vallabhaneni Balashowry of YSR Congress. This is a major comeback for the Telugu Desam Party in the Guntur district after 10 years. It has won 12 out of 17 Assembly segments and all the three Lok Sabha segments of Guntur, Narsaraopet and Bapatla.
Jayadev has made a huge fortune out of Amara Raja. He and his family own 8,89,27,452 shares of Amara Raja which is worth a mind-blowing 3414 crore. Jayadev’s personal net worth is about Rs. 660 crore.
The shareholders of Amara Raja are grinning from ear to ear. As it is, Amara Raja has given them a 55% YOY return and a 175% return over 2 years. Jayadev Galla’s ascension to power spells out better times for Amara Raja.
I wonder how this win of Mr. Galla is good for the company. If he has to fulfill his duties as the representative of the people, that means his time and energy has to come out from somewhere. No guesses, it will come from the time & energy he currently invests in ARB.
If on the other hand, the conclusion is that company benefits due to its owner-manager being a powerful politician, I am sure many shareholders would find it un-ethical. This conclusion is a thumbs-down from me.
Business and Politics should stay separate.
Arun SG
Well said and I agree.
Mix-up of business and politics is every where – not to be confused with crony capitalism. This nexus, if used rightly and brilliantly, can generate huge business opportunities. Think of Gautam Adani and Reliance Industries (which have always maintained an extremely cordial relations with the politicians and lately (in case of RIL) more particularly with NaMo) and have been able to take advantage of this relationship.