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    AM Naik - who owns 6 shirts & 3 suits - plans to give away all money he made as L&T boss

    Synopsis

    There was a time when the head honcho thought he would retire after drawing a salary of Rs 1,000.

    AM NaikAgencies
    Today any list of India’s top paid CEOs would be incomplete without a mention of AM Naik. But there was a time when the L&T lifer thought he would retire drawing a salary of just Rs 1,000.

    Of course, that changed within 12 months of him joining the company. “I didn’t expect it [to make this much money],” Naik told ETPanache during an interview at his office in suburban Mumbai. “I thought I would retire when I get Rs 1,000. But I got it in the first year itself. I started at Rs 670. On confirmation I got Rs 760 and then six months later, after the annual review, I got Rs 950. A month after that there was a Union agreement and everyone got Rs 75 more. That’s how I started getting Rs 1,025.”

    Not in the family
    Naik narrates his story simply. He nibbles on his popcorn and shares a short explanation of his rise as CEO of the company where he started as an engineer. Stock options were allotted to employees. The company grew, and so did he and the value of the stocks. Employees became “[rupees] millionaires and crorepatis”.

    “Now everyone was retiring in a much more prosperous manner,” he said, making him realise that he now had the means to focus on philanthropy. Around two years ago, along with announcing his decision of stepping down from the active leadership of the company, Naik revealed that he would be giving 75 per cent of his wealth to charity. That number could well become 100.




    “In the unlikely event if my son and daughter-in-law [Jignesh and Rucha] don’t come back to India, then after me a good part of the balance will also go away to charity,” he said, adding, “They don’t need it [the money]. In fact, they encourage me to give it away. They have never objected to my decisions. They have only supported me in my plans.” Those plans include the building of a speciality hospital to treat cancer, a general hospital, an eye hospital, and a nursing college, all in Gujarat, his “janmabhoomi [birthplace],” over the next five years. These initiatives will be executed under the aegis of the Nirali Memorial Medical Trust, named after Naik’s granddaughter (son’s daughter) who died from cancer at the age of two.

    The mistake

    Ask him about the paradox of both his son and daughter making a life in the US, given that he is such a proud Indian, and he calls it ‘his mistake’.

    AM Naik's son Jignesh (L) ​and daughter-in-law RuchaAgencies
    AM Naik's son Jignesh (L) and daughter-in-law Rucha

    “Every day or every other month I encourage them to come back. I call it my mistake because I was very keen that they leave,” he shared. “In 1991, colleges were shut down across India owing to social unrest. My son was studying at Anand in Gujarat at the time. He would leave every Sunday night for Anand and return on Monday or Tuesday. The same routine followed for almost five months, as the students were expected to sign the register once every week. So, I also got fed up. And I sent him away in 1991. I could give him $5,000 at the time. After that he managed on his own, doing part-time jobs.”

    His daughter Pratiksha, on the other hand, moved to the US after marriage. “That was just a natural turn of events. It was my initiative to send them away. Hence I call it my mistake,” he added.

    No free lunches

    As a man with a taste for austerity — his wardrobe comprises just six shirts, three suits and two pairs of shoes — Naik knows the true worth of wealth. And that’s why he doesn’t rely on others for financial help to fund each of his initiatives. “I don’t ask others [for money] because I don’t like to plead with them. When we expanded our school, and built a new campus, a lot of people promised that they’d give [donate towards the project], but hardly 10 per cent people responded. So, after that I decided I will never go to anyone ,” he said.


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