Gopichand Hinduja and the rift at the heart of UK's richest family

The death of industrialist Gopichand “GP” Hinduja, head of the Hinduja family who topped the Sunday Times Rich List 2025 with a net worth of over £35 billion, has made public a long-running family feud.

The Hinduja dynasty has been “riven by a decade-long 'Succession'-style feud”, said John Arlidge in The Times. With the two remaining brothers, Ashok and Prakash, taking control in the interim, major questions over how “power, control and money should pass from one generation of the family to the next” are still unanswered.

‘Publicity-shy’

The second of four brothers running a business empire, GP ran the Hinduja Group since the death of his older brother Srichand (“SP”) in 2023. Since it was founded in 1914 by their father Parmanand, trading carpets, tea and spices to the West, it has grown to 11 sectors (including healthcare, banking, IT, trading, media and real estate), operating in 48 countries with up to 250,000 employees.

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Though the “publicity-shy” Hinduja Group may not be a household name, its UK and global reach is profound, said Josh Spero, Chris Kay and Krishn Kaushik in the Financial Times. GP and his older brother transformed the family’s “modest trading operation” in India and Iran, into a “major”, global “conglomerate”.

GP was a “very vocal champion” of closer economic and political ties between his ancestral homeland of India and naturalised country the UK, said The Hindu. He would often address gatherings in London to “exhort” businesses to “invest in the booming Indian market”.

‘Embroiled in controversy’

“The family has had to endure publicity – all of it bad – since the feud erupted”, with the dispute “likely to get worse” after a period of mourning, sources close to the family told The Times. The fighting within the family has become so intense that the “total legal fees are said to have reached £20 million”, with “one wing of the family communicating with the others via lawyers”, said the outlet.

The unrest began when GP’s elder brother Srichand claimed sole ownership of Hinduja Bank, which is based in Switzerland, which “shattered” the “sense of family harmony”, said Rory Tingle in The Daily Mail. The struggle intensified as Srichand developed dementia, with a High Court judge raising concerns that the family had “failed to arrange adequate care for him”.

The surprising initial request undermined the “age-old” motto of “everything belongs to everyone and nothing belongs to anyone” held within the family, said Benjamin Stupples in Bloomberg.

Most notably, GP was “embroiled in controversy” in 2001 after it was revealed he had written to Peter Mandelson, then the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, about “obtaining a UK passport for his brother Prakash”, said Lauren Almeida in The Guardian. The brothers had “donated £1 million through their charitable foundation” towards the Millennium Dome, a project that Mandelson was overseeing. Mandelson resigned, but was later cleared following an inquiry.

The Hindujas also faced allegations over international arms policy, said Ishani Sarkar in Style. The family was involved in the “so-called Bofors scandal”, which was a “major weapons-contract political scandal between India and Sweden”. However, the allegations made against the family were dismissed by the Delhi High Court in 2005.

Most recently, the family has faced serious accusations from abroad, said Imogen Foulkes of the BBC. The third Hinduja brother, Prakash, and his wife, son and daughter-in-law, were sentenced to jail by a Swiss court last year for “exploiting staff” in their “Geneva villa”. The family is appealing the charges.