Swraj Paul's later-career expansion: Caparo's N America bet after crises

At 90, Paul backed Bull Moose Tube's 350,000-tonne pipe mill in Texas - evidence of late-career expansion discipline

Even in his nineties, Lord Swraj Paul backed expansion with discipline. In June 2021, Caparo’s Bull Moose Tube announced a new mill at Sinton, Texas — 350,000 tonnes per annum of hollow structural sections and sprinkler pipe, pegged at an investment of $200–250 million. It would be the company’s eighth North American plant and a scale fit for a recovering construction cycle. 

Swraj Paul (1931–2025), founder of Caparo and one of the most prominent India-born industrialists in Britain, died in London at the age of 94. A life peer in the House of Lords since 1996, Paul built a global metals-engineering footprint and played a distinctive role in India-UK economic ties. In India, his 1980s bids for Escorts and DCM forced a reckoning with hostile takeovers and shareholder rights — an inflexion point in corporate history. He remained a vocal advocate of transparent rules for investors and of manufacturing-led growth.

 

 

His Texas build-out came after a period of turbulence. In 2010, questions over Caparo’s financial health surfaced; Paul moved quickly to assert that the engineering group was “alive and well”, emphasising improvements since the 2008 downturn. The subsequent North America expansion — and the emphasis on higher-value tubular products — suggests a measured pivot to cash-generative niches rather than volume for its own sake. 

 

Read with his India remarks on skills and manufacturing, the Bull Moose move also showed Paul’s preference for process-intensive, standards-heavy businesses where operating discipline compounds over time. As obituaries tally legacy assets, this Texas line stands as a late-career marker of continuity: Capital, technology, and a long-view on industrial cycles.

 

SWRAJ PAUL: A TIMELINE

 

February 18, 1931: Born in Jalandhar (then Jullundur), Punjab

 

1966: Moves to the United Kingdom

 

1968: Founds Caparo in the UK

 

Early 1980s: Launches high-profile bids for Escorts and DCM; changes attitudes to corporate control contests

 

1996: Created life peer; sits in the House of Lords

 

2005: Bids for Dunlop India via BIFR process

 

2010: Issues “Caparo alive and well” clarification amid media questions

 

2013: Calls for “open, transparent rules” for foreign investors

 

2015: Family tragedy as son Angad Paul passes away (CEO, Caparo plc)

 

2021: Bull Moose Tube announces 350,000-tonne Sinton, Texas mill

 

2021: Says he told Narendra Modi he admired Indira Gandhi, illustrating his cross-party pragmatism

 

August 21, 2025: Dies in London at 94