Zia Mody: A Chip off the Old Block

Daughter of legal luminary Soli Sorabjee, Zia Mody has proved a chip of the old block. A gifted legal giant like her father, she is trusted by most corporate houses including Tatas, Birlas, Mittals, Ambanis and so on, who would not conclude big deals without soliciting her advice. Ketan Mistry traces the inspiring tale of Zia Mody’s saga of struggle and success.

Looking at her father in awe, the young, wide-eyed 8 year old girl always finds her father immersed in heaps of voluminous books. Her father is a renowned solicitor. Piles of books lay on the dining table, as the Solicitor is multitasking by simultaneously attending to his meals, intermittent calls and examining the files on hand. The awestruck girl could not stop marveling: how her father manages everything at a time. At that moment, she resolves to be a lawyer. Like her father.

It is all four and a half decade ago. Today the young girl has grown into a fine lawyer herself, famous in her own rights. She is Zia Mody and her father is a legendary legal luminary, former Advocate General of India and constitution expert Soli Sorabjee.

Zia Mody’s company AZB & Partners has already made its mark across the world. It is first among the top ten companies in India in the field of Merger & Acquisition.

Acquisition, incidentally means when a company buys up a new company and merger means when a company merges itself with another company and expands after becoming part of it. In short, the whole process in corporate parlance is known as M & A and in case of either of this being accomplished it is called a deal.

In the Indian corporate world during the last 6-7 years, front ranking giants like Tatas, Birlas, Mittals, Ambanis and Bajaj have either gone into merger or acquired overseas companies.

Two people play key roles in case of merger or acquisition: investment banker and Merger and Acquisition lawyer. For buying a foreign-based company is not as easy as say, going to a near by car showroom and buying a car. Apart from examining the books of accounts of the company on sale, one has to learn about the laws of that country, prevailing business environment and government policy and so on. All this is accomplished by Merger & Acquisition lawyer whose hourly fees may range from Rs 20000/- to Rs 50000/-

A founder member of AZB & Partners, Zia Mody is considered the queen of the Merger and Acquisition business. America’s financial Software, media and data company Bloomberg says in its research report that AZB & Partners is at the zenith of her business and is also leading in IPO advertisers.

A quick look at the prestigious deals concluded by Zia in the recent past will reveal the formidable capacity of the company: Chorus Steel and Jaguar Land Rover for Tatas, Novelis for Aditya Birla Group, Zain for Sunil Bharati Mittal, British Petroleum for Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and Cairn India for Anil Agarwal of Vedant Group and so on and so forth. In other words, the company has accomplished or in the process of doing so deals worth US $ 10.27

Cut to..

We are sitting in AZB & Partners’ office overlooking the Arabian Sea and our tête-à-tête takes off

Having decided to be a lawyer like her father after watching the latter arguing away incessantly or issuing curt orders on phone, Zia decides to share her decision with her father. Her father is mildly surprised. Zia was the eldest among one son and two daughters. Her father perhaps mused if she was serious about her being lawyer or would settle down marrying someone after wasting fees.

But Zia has already made up her mind. Encouraged by her mother she obtains a law degree from University of Cambridge. Later she gets an LLM degree from the Howard Law School in 1978 and takes up a job in NewYork based Baker & Mackenzie, the biggest law firm in the world. Having worked for five years in this firm she returns to India in 1984.

Reminiscing about the past, she says, ‘those days the law world was essentially a male bastion and you would hardly find a woman. Though I started going to courts, no one would take me seriously there. Anyway, it took some time for me to gain self-confidence. However, having worked in a few firms, I finally set up my own office in Flora fountain based Ali Chambers: Chamber of Zia (CZM).

When she applied for a loan of Rs 30 lacs from HDFC for this project, it surprised Deepak Parekh, for ‘good Parsis don’t take loans’ explains Zia. ‘I had requested Deepak Parekh not to charge me prepaid interest penalty’ adds Zia.

It is a different story that the loan has already been repaid and today Deepak Parekh also happens to be one of her clients. As she started getting sundry assignments, her first big break came in the nineties when Manmohan Singh-initiated liberalization facilitated entry of a number of foreign companies. Zia’s first client was Allianz Capital who wanted to start Mutual Funds in India. She slogged hard and ensured their Indian entry.

The turning point in Zia’s career came after Tata’s US $ 486.4 Netsteel deal. She was appointed by Tatas after the group’s General Counselor Bharat Vasani recommended her name. Once the flow of work increased, she roped in two equally brilliant lawyers and founded AZB & Partners. ‘A’ stands for Ajay Bahl, who is a CA cum lawyer and had done internship at Solee Sorabjee’s firm. He had never dreamt that one day he would be a partner of his daughter. He now looks after Delhi office. While ‘Z’ means Zia, ‘B’ stands for Behram, who is the son of Naval Vakil, senior partner of the oldest law firm Little & Co. Incidentally it was Naval Vakil who had offered Sorabjee his first brief.

One might wonder how despite being daughter of Soli Sorabjee, it took her as many as fifteen years to get her major deal. Zia explains: you don’t get deals that easily merely because you are daughter of so and so. You do get odd job but that is it. It took us so many years to get Tata’s deal. We did their odd assignments here and there and then came Netsteel. In fact, my hubby and Nita Ambani happen to be relatives, but the Reliance assignment came as late as early this year.

Zia admits that the Netsteel was the most memorable assignment of her career, as it involved a lot of nitty-gritty and intricate documentations. She burnt the midnight oil and prepared her brief.

Today, despite having as many as seventeen partners and close to 225 lawyers, she would not let any legal draft go to the client without reading and correcting it herself.

She would be in office by 10.30/11 am if she is not traveling. But there is no time for going home. It may be 1 o’clock at midnight or sometimes work pressure holds her back till 3 or 4 am in the morning. Even then she is accessible on email, phone to attend to her clients. In no time, she would attend to their queries through sms or email.

‘Has it ever happened that her advice made her client change his mind and drop the deal?

‘Yes, some time back, a big business group dropped a very big deal on our counsel. After all, our clients come to us for our competence and judgment.’

‘But does it ever happen that despite taking so much care, there have been mistakes?’

‘Yes, it has indeed happened. But my policy is that instead of covering up the mistake, it is best to admit it and get back to correcting that mistake.’

Presently Zia Mody is working on a deal of Vedanta Resources who are engaged in mining-metal field. There is an interesting story on how she landed with this assignment.

‘Last year I was waiting at Heathrow airport for a Mumbai flight and I ran into Anil Agarwal, chairman of Vedanta Resources. During our conversation I learnt that Anilji happens to know my brother Dr. Jahangir Sorbajee very well. A couple of days later, I got a call from Anilji, who said let us have lunch at Jahangir’s house. I took my lunch box and went over to Jahangir house. We dispersed after lunch.

Next day, I got a call from Anil, who asked me: Zia, can you help us with Cairn India deal? We intend to take it over Zia says that while we met, he had never dropped any hint about that takeover. He was apparently sizing me up.

Takeover of Orissa-based Cairn India limited ran into several hurdles like environment issue and royalty but at the end of the day it has got government’s partial sanction.

Eldest of her siblings, Zia’s brother is Dr. Jahangir Sorabjee who is associated with Bombay Hospital and the youngest is Horamzad Sorabjee who edits English magazine Autocar.

After returning from America, she married jaidev Mody in 1985. She loved Jaidev, son of Usha and Mukund Mody, since childhood. Both happen to be neighbours. Mukund Mody too is a law expert. Hubby Jaidev Mody is a renowned realtor and owner of famous Delta group. They had built the first big shopping mall-Crossroad- at Haji Ali in Mumbai

They have three teenaged daughters.

Does Zia give adequate time to her family?

No, can’t give. My work does affect my family but my hubby Jaidev is very supportive. Besides, I somehow manage to spare some time for my family. I have attended all teachers-parents meetings of my daughters and witnessed all the programmes where they have participated. Ok, now tell us, does not the monotony of work get on your nerves? No, she says, there is a lot of variety in my work. Each deal is a new challenge. Fresh litigations, fresh solutions to new problems, all these keep me excited..

Ignorance means death

Where did you get inspiration to make law a career?

From my father

Hurdles while pursuing this career: I faced problems while arguing in courts. It took some time to build confidence. But judges were supportive.

Inspiration: Of course, father. Even today, I call up my father for advice in case of any knotty problem.

Success mantra:Not knowing is death

Books: Reading law books and files takes away much of my time. Yes, I do read motivational books related to the Baha’i religion.