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BILLIONAIRES NEXT They are the emerging billionaires, waiting to storm into the exclusive club. Niraj Bhatt reports While in various other articles in this magazine, we have cut and diced the list of existing billionaires, there are some who haven’t yet made it to the Rs 100-crore criterion this year, but are closing in on the magic mark. One of them began his career in his father’s grain trading business, another put in a decade in the Indian Police Service, while another left his job in the US and set up a software business in India. In terms of businesses, the industries are varied – software, energy meters, garments, engineering, auto ancillaries and pharmaceuticals. Subros’ Chairman and Managing Director Ramesh Suri has been an OEM supplier of air-conditioning to auto majors. He tops the list of wannabe billionaires with a net worth of Rs 99.28 crore on August 31, 2006 – up 22 per cent over the previous year. At the second place is power and telecom cable manufacturer Paramount Communication’s Chairman and CEO Sanjay Aggarwal. After fininshing his graduation from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Aggarwal joined the family company which had a Rs 2-crore turnover. Says Aggarwal: “We have cracked some tough nuts over the years, and have continuously innovated.” Aggarwal feels his strength is the “swing capability – we can change our product mix from telecom to power cable and vice versa easily”. No wonder then that the Aggarwal wealth has gone up 123 per cent in a year to Rs 98.86 crore. I C Agarwal, chairman of the Rs 132-crore Genus Overseas Electronics, which has presence in hybrid micro electronic modules, surface mount technology, automatic test facilities, reliability testing, electronic metering systems and power conversion products had humble beginnings from Churu district in Rajashtan, where he joined his father’s grain business in 1968.
Later, he moved to Rourkela and Moradabad, setting up businesses like coal trading, khandsari manufacturing and a small cement plant. In 1994, he started Genus with some partners, but three years later that business did not have any demand and he bought out the stake of his partners. His son Kailash Agarwal says, “My father’s grit and sheer ambition pushed him to turn around the business.” At the end of August 2006, the promoters had a net worth of Rs 98.6 crore from Genus Overseas. Another category of the emerging entrepreneurs is the promoters who made their public issues in the past year, resulting in unlocking of their wealth. In this list, Ashish Jhunjhunwala, CMD of Ramsarup Industries, a wire and thermo mechanically treated (TMT) bars manufacturer, heads the list with a wealth of Rs 98.2 crore. Celebrity Fashions’ Venkatesh Rajagopal, an MA in Economics, started his career in the Indian Police Service, where he worked for a decade. He resigned from Indian Police Service in 1988 to start a garment exports business. Celebrity caters to the leading international brands such as Timberland, Eddie Bauer, Diesel and Armani, and also markets in the country under the Indian Terrain brand. Along with his wife Rama, Rajagopal owns 42.6 per cent in Celebrity Fashions, valued at Rs 92.58 crore. FCS Software’s CMD Dalip Kumar went to study his masters in computer engineering at Rutgers University, USA, after a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from Punjab Engineering College. After working for a decade, he founded FCS Software in 1993 to provide ERP consulting services. In the next few years, the company set up its offshore delivery model. Unlike some other promoters in this list, Kumar owns his shares directly and says, “Only knowledge matters, everything else comes along.” ICSA India’s CMD G Bala Reddy can convince you that if you can grab the right opportunity, success will follow. Reddy joined Madhupala Credit Capital, an NBFC as the head of resource mobilisation in 1996. In 1998, the company was in trouble. Reddy says, “That year, I bought a stake in the company and took the moral responsibility to pay back the depositors from whom I had raised funds.” The company changed its name to Innareddy Computer Software Associates and the struggling entrepreneur managed to make the company debt-free in 2000. However, the software business too didn’t make much headway, and the company changed its name to ICSA India and entered the power sector in 2002. Reddy adds, “I saw an opportunity in the power sector as transmission and distribution (T&D) losses were at 50 per cent, and the Electricity Act gave us the first-mover advantage.” Today, the company has developed energy management and energy audit products to identify T&D losses and monitor power consumption, and boasts of several utilities across the country as its clients. In
the stock markets, it is believed that new bull markets are made
of new leaders. As India’s growth story is expeced to continue
for the next few years, a lot of these businesses are likely to
become bigger, and will make these entrepreneurs richer.• HOME Business Standard • October 2006 |
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