SUCCESSION CRISIS AS FAMILY TRAGEDY

N April 30, the Delhi High Court did something that no family should ever require a court to do.

- TULSI JAYAKUMAR

It ordered an interim freeze on the 30,000-crore estate and assets of late businessman Sanjay Kapur because the family could not agree on who owned what or whether the will was even genuine. This is not simply a celebrity inheritance saga. It is a parable for a crisis silently unfolding across India’s family business landscape that combines legal dysfunction, financial recklessness and a psychological toll on families that rarely makes the headlines.

The numbers are pretty staggering. A 2025 HSBC Global Private Banking report estimated that nearly 70 percent of India’s 334 billionaires are preparing to pass on approximately $1.5 trillion in wealth—a sum exceeding a third of India’s GDP. This is one of the largest intergeneration-al wealth transfers in Indian history. And yet, insights from Entrust Family Office found that fewer than half of Indian business-owning families have a formally documented succession plan in place. The gap between wealth creation and wealth transition is structurally dangerous.

A PwC survey released this February sharpens the paradox. Indian family businesses are among the most ambitious in the world, with 75 percent targeting growth of over 15 percent through 2026. Yet the same survey flags that succession planning, board diversity and governance modernisation remain areas of urgent, unaddressed need. Confidence and ambition are running decades ahead of preparation.