George Fernandes: The minister who threw Coca-Cola out of India, stalled HPCL privatisation
In 1977, he threw Coca-Cola out of India and two-and-a-half decades later, put spokes in the sale of India's second-biggest fuel retailer HPCL to the likes of Reliance Industries and Royal Dutch Shell. That was George Mathew Fernandes, former defence minister in the Vajpayee government who died Tuesday.
A firebrand trade unionist and socialist, Fernandes was the industry minister in the post-Emergency Morarji Desai government in 1977 when he decided to throw Coke as well as IBM out of India over their refusal to follow the provision of what was then the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA).
The provision stipulated that foreign companies should dilute their equity stake in their Indian associates to 60 per cent.
Fernandes wanted Coca-Cola Company to not just transfer 60 per cent of the shares of its Indian firm but also the formula for its concentrate to Indian shareholders. The company said it was agreeable to transferring a majority of the shares but not the formula, which it ...