The Tata Group, best known in the UK for having bought British brand icons Jaguar and Land Rover, also has a long-standing tradition of philanthropy and capital socialism.

The company is two-thirds owned by charitable trusts, which benefit from a third of the £1.5bn profits, and philanthropy plays a major role in its thinking, it was reported in The Guardian newspaper this week.

The largest private company in India, it has built hospitals and research institutes, has provided schooling for 7,000 children in Jamshedpur – named after Tata's founder, Jamshedji Tata – and established a department at the London School of Economics.

Jamsetji Tata started a textile business in 1868, and the company grew to create India's first steel mill, start the country's first airline – now Air India – and built its first locally made trains and its first hydroelectric power station.

It is today a massive conglomerate of 98 companies employing 300,000 workers who produce everything from steel to solar power to tea. Group annual revenues approximate £20bn.

"We all consider ourselves capitalist socialists," R Gopalakrishnan, a director of Tata Sons, told The Guardian. "I find it very energising to be able to go to work to earn profits by being more efficient and decent about the way of doing business. For all the sins that I must be doing, I do the job because 30%-40% of the profit is going back to help other people. That's why we do the job."