Lodha vs Lodha: Brothers slug it out over who gets to use the big brand name

While other India Inc families in realty – the Hiranandanis, Rahejas and Godrejs – managed smooth operations after a strategized split, the Lodha story is fraught.

As old gives way to new

The Lodha Group, renamed Macrotech Developers in 2019, made it to the GROHE-Hurun India Real Estate top 100 list the second time in 2024, now holding the second spot after DLF, with a combined wealth of ₹91,700 crore.

In its early years, the company targeted affordable housing for the middle-class but eventually expanded its portfolio into luxury. The shift was a consequence of the two brothers’ return from the West with world experiences. Abhishek had worked with McKinsey & Co in Atlanta, USA, after acquiring a Master of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Abhinandan had pursued MBA from University of Cardiff, UK.

In 2003, Mangal Prabhat Lodha eased his sons in the family business – Abhishek was positioned as the managing director of the Group, while Abhinandan took charge of finance. The brothers would make formal appearances together till 2015 to promote their brand, business and projects.

And then Abhinandan separated from the family business to start his own company, Lodha Ventures, a financial services firm in 2015; but the real trouble started when he eventually entered the real estate market, launching The House of Abhinandan Lodha (HoABL), in 2020.

A turbulent present

Dispute within the family became public in January 2025 when Macrotech Developers moved the Bombay high court citing foul play by HoABL and Abhinandan in the use of the family name ‘Lodha’ in his companies. Abhishek wants his brother to refrain from using the trademark. His contention: Using the name ‘Lodha’ in both entities was creating confusion among buyers.

His petition has presented instances of big-ticket corporate players and potential home buyers being perplexed by the real estate business run by the brothers. Abhishek supported his claim by presenting chats between Aditya Puri, former CEO of HDFC Bank, and Lodha Group’s representative, where the former enquired about the Lodha project in Alibaug, which is being developed by HoABL. In another instance, a former executive assistant to industrialist Sunil Bharti Mittal reached out to Abhishek about a property in Goa, seeking to connect with a salesperson of HoABL.

An insider told HT, “The confusion had peaked to such an extent that legal notices that should have landed at the doors of HoABL came to Lodha Group. It’s a case of brand equity erosion.” It led Abhishek to seek damages of over ₹5,000 crore from his sibling for “unlawfully” adding his company’s trademark.

Even as the legal battle goes to a mediator, their mother Manju Lodha has intervened legally. A carefully drafted letter by their mother Manju on February 21, 2025, presents a mix of emotions and legal astuteness as she refers to her sons as “Ram and Lakshman” who were the envy of her own friends. The letter requests the two to “stop all disputes immediately”, and not “interfere in any manner with each other’s business”.

Interestingly, the Lodha Group’s registered address and HoABL’s corporate and registered address are separated by a few floors in Lodha Excelus, Mahalaxmi. Likewise, the Lodha clan also resides at Lodha Costiera on Napean Sea Road. The siblings live just a floor apart, while their parents occupy a couple of upper floors in the same building.

Meanwhile, even as the mediation is proving to be difficult to navigate, earlier this month Macrotech Developers alleged that HoABL had forged and fabricated an identity document (PAN card) and signature of one of its independent directors and former chairman and managing director of Dena Bank Ashwani Kumar to register four companies using the Lodha name. This was alleged in a statutory disclosure made to the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange on April 2.

While the Abhishek camp did not press any criminal charge, in a move that surprised the management and legal team at the Lodha Group, HoABL filed a 73-page police complaint at NM Joshi Marg police station on April 3 to investigate the alleged forgery offence committed by unknown people.

Kumar did not respond to HT’s queries.

A prominent developer termed this an internal dispute that has spilled out in the public domain. “When they had parted ways, they never traded charges in public. Something surely has gone wrong along the way. Once the siblings settle their differences, all will be forgotten with the scale of branding exercise that will be undertaken to promote their company and sell realty projects.”

The early experiments

In better times, when the brothers were a united force, in 2010, the Lodha Group secured a 22.5-acre plot in Mumbai’s Wadala for ₹5,700 crore. Today, its equity stands enhanced, rechristened New Cuffe Parade in central Mumbai.

In the same year, the siblings announced the construction of a 442-meter “world’s tallest tower” in Lower Parel called World One. Co-incidentally, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest standing at 828 metres, opened to public in the same year.

Innovative strategies also led the brothers’ foray into an agreement with Trump Towers in 2013 for a 78-storey residential Trump Tower at Lower Parel, second in India after Pune’s Panchshil Realty. Currently, India has four Trump Tower properties -- in Pune, Mumbai, Gurugram and Kolkata.

A year later, in 2014, Lodha Group stepped into London’s realty market by buying the former Canadian High Commission building in Mayfair for £306 million. At the time Abhishek had told ‘Financial Times’ that he wants to be among the top two developers in London by 2019. They however sold the property eventually contemplating a premature exit in a bid to keep its India business afloat. Far from becoming one of London’s top two developers, it exited the UK market in 2023.

Gradual fissures

The rift between the brothers emerged by October 2015, before their businessman-turned-politician father celebrated his 60th birthday. The brothers decided to part ways, with Abhishek taking control of the real estate business with an expected revenue of ₹9,000 crore in FY 2015-16. Abhinandan set up Roselabs Finance, financial services business with a market capitalisation of just ₹30 crore.

Two family agreements in April and September of 2015 reveal there were no clashes in the non-compete sectors and company or trademark names. By March 2017 however both agreements came unstuck with the change in ownership of business and assets. Additionally, the brothers discovered errors and discrepancies in property valuation and negative impact on the family’s London assets caused by Brexit. A third agreement jointly signed by parents and the two sons stated that neither brother had agreed “to take possession and management of divided properties as envisaged” in the first family agreement. HT has seen copies of the third and fourth agreements.

The 2017 agreement gave the rights of the real estate business to the senior Lodhas, Abhishek and Rajendra Lodha (director at Lodha Group). Abhinandan was to take charge of “new businesses”, controlled directly or indirectly by him and “engaged in business other than real estate”. These new businesses fell under Lodha Ventures, which would later run into trademark dispute for the use of the Lodha name.

The new agreement categorically mentioned that he will not engage in any real estate activity in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) for five years (March 2017-2022) and in Greater London for 30 months. He was however “free to engage in real estate business outside the two territories...” said the agreement, a copy of which is with HT.

It is this 15-page agreement that forms the genesis of the trademark war between the brothers. It vested control of all of the rights of “…Lodha real estate business including trade name, brand name, logo, design, copyright and goodwill...” to Lodha Developers, keeping Abhinandan out.

Abhinandan’s entities were only allowed to “…advertise itself as ‘Abhinandan Lodha venture/ project’ but develop and own a distinct and separate IPR...differentiated from the Lodha real estate business”.

The non-compete clause of 2015 permitted the Family Council comprising the parents, Berjis Minoo Desai (an independent legal counsel engaged in succession and estate planning for HNIs and promoter families) and a certain Dineshbhai Patel to allow Abhinandan to enter MMR’s real estate business three years after the amended agreement. However, this came with a caveat -- provided Lodha real estate business was in a healthy financial shape and the terms of agreement were not violated by him.

Other than splitting properties, it was also agreed that Lodha Developers would pay Abhinandan ₹25 lakh per month for 30 months and Abhinandan’s business would provide a loan without interest of ₹144 crore to Abhishek’s company. This was to support the real estate business due to “tight financial conditions”.

Brothers at war

In December 2023, at the end of the five years stipulated in the third agreement, a fresh agreement was finalised between the brothers – Abhinandan secured the right to develop his own identity in the form of ‘House of Abhinandan Lodha’ or HoABL for the real estate business.

Until 2023, Abhishek’s Lodha Group had its footprint in almost all verticals of real estate – residential, commercial, retail, warehousing and plots. It operated in the geographies of MMR, Pune, National Capital Region and Bengaluru. Whereas, HoABL, a subsidiary of Lodha Ventures, has projects in MMR, Maharashtra, Goa, Ayodhya, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

A source close to Abhinandan told HT that the litigation moved by Abhishek in January is a consequence to Abhinandan’s HoABL Infraworld, a subsidiary, acquiring the American Centre, at New Marine Lines, at ₹55.98 crore in the second half of 2024; a month later, in December 2024, HoABL announced that its upcoming project will be of ground plus seven-storey highrise with a development potential of around 60,000 sq ft. “Perhaps this hasn’t gone down well with Abhishek, who has viewed his younger sibling as a direct competition to his real estate business, and hence the trademark battle,” the source said, on condition of anonymity.

Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Manju, Abhishek and Abhinandan did not respond to Hindustan Times’s request to be interviewed on the ongoing dispute.