Formal Indianisation and After, 1976–91

Abstract

Since the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act (FERA), all the managing agencies have undergone almost total change, but to a surprising extent, much evidence of the past remains. This is still apparent in the retention of the old names – such as Shaw Wallace, Jardine’s, McLeod, Gillanders, Balmer Lawrie, Warren, and Octavius Steel — by companies who now have few links with the founders who bore these names. The only relics of the old managing-agency houses which still have a degree of sterling ownership are Macneill & Magor, Warren’s and the Goodricke Group, and in two cases out of three these owners have substantially changed. The Assam Company, through its ownership by Inchcape, would have been a fourth example, until its sale to the Methas of Bermuda in mid-1991.