Sudhir Mehta: A calculated risk taker

An extremely media shy person, Mehta is known for staying away from interviews and press briefings

Sudhir Mehta has taken the Torrent Group from strength to strength. What started as Trinity Laboratories in the 70s is now a Rs 11,800-crore business conglomerate, with interests in areas such as pharmaceuticals and power.

Extremely media-shy, Mehta is known to stay away from interviews and press briefings. The Torrent chief is known for being a businessman to the core, with a keen acumen to identify growth sectors. The soft-spoken Mehta is also known for his people-management skills.

Trinity Laboratories, a company started by Mehta’s father U N Mehta, began operations in the early 70s. Mehta senior had initiated the concept of niche marketing. In 1970, he reached a milestone with the launch of Trinicalm Plus, an effective tranquilliser in a niche segment — central nervous system.

Following U N Mehta’s death, his elder son Sudhir took over as chairman of the group in 1998. Sudhir Mehta turned his focus on exports and was instrumental is charting the company’s entry into the international market. He forayed into Russia at a time when the country was going through turbulent times, in terms of political stability. His decision paid off: Today, Torrent has strong presence in European countries, Russia and Brazil.

Together with brother Samir Mehta, he focused on building manufacturing facilities. Now, Torrent Pharma has manufacturing facilities in Mehsana, Gujarat, apart from one each in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

The astute businessman in Mehta was quick to foresee the emerging opportunities in the power sector. In 1991, when the Union government allowed private sector participation in the power sector, Sudhir started buying Ahmedabad Electricity Company Ltd and Surat Electricity Company Ltd shares, finally acquiring majority stakes in these by the late 90s. Simultaneously, he announced plans to set up a 655-Mw dual-fuel combined cycle power project in Gujarat and also proposed the 1,147.5-Mw Sugen gas-fired power station, the largest gas-based power project of an independent power producer. The project was dedicated to the nation recently.

Today, Torrent Power has generation capacity of 2,101 Mw and distributes power to 2.76 million customers in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Surat in Gujarat, Bhiwandi in Maharashtra and Agra in Uttar Pradesh.

Sudhir and Samir Mehta also feature in the Forbes India Rich List. As of October 2013, their net worth stood at about $1.18 billion.