The Indian industrialist Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao announced last week that he would donate $340-million to charity, says the Hindustan Times.

The chairman of the GMR group, in Bangalore, said he would give his entire 12.5-percent stake in the firm to the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation to create an endowment.

Mr. Rao was among some 70 wealthy Indians who met privately last week with Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to discuss philanthropy in India.

He said the timing of his announcement during the American philanthropists’ visit was coincidental and that the pledge of his GMR shares to charity was part of a family agreement signed in 2007 and revised earlier this year.