SP Hinduja (1935-2023): Global Magnate

WHEN SRICHAND PARMANAND HINDUJA joined his father’s commodities trading business in Iran as a 17-year-old, it was already a substantial enterprise. Hinduja’s father Parmanand, a trader from Pakistan’s Sindh province, had moved from pre-Independent India to grow a successful business exporting carpets, dried fruits and saffron from Iran and importing textiles, tea and spices from India.

But it was nothing compared to what Hinduja, who died recently at his home in London at the age of 87, would ultimately achieve by the end of the century. Forced to shift their base to London in 1979 once the Iranian Revolution took place, he and his three brothers Gopichand, Prakash and Ashok seized the new opportunities a globalised world offered and transformed a relatively small family business into an international conglomerate that today stretches across multiple sectors, has a presence in over three dozen countries and employs more than 1.5 lakh individuals.

They entered the big league with the family’s entry into the oil and gas business in the 1980s. One of their first big deals was acquiring the Gulf Oil International Ltd in 1984. In 1987, the brothers also bought the Land Rover Leyland International Holdings, which held a 40 per cent stake in Ashok Leyland, the second-largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India today, which they increased to 51 per cent later. Many more significant acquisitions and new businesses followed in banking and insurance, IT and BPO services, healthcare, and a host of other sectors, from the launch of IndusInd Bank in 1993, one of the first new-generation private banks in India, to the purchase of the heritage mansion Carlton House Terrace that neighbours Buckingham Palace for their residence. Last year, Hinduja and his brother Gopichand were ranked Britain’s richest by the Sunday Times in their 2022 Rich List with a collective fortune estimated at £28.4 billion.

Hinduja was the patriarch of the family and also a consummate networker. This assiduous courting of the establishment might have started with their relations with the late Shah of Iran, but it was a skill that he and his brothers took with them to London, throwing lavish parties for the rich and famous, and forging close ties with the movers and shakers of global politics, from former American presidents like George HW Bush and Bill Clinton to former British prime ministers like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

Controversies weren’t far behind. The brothers found themselves embroiled in the Bofors scandal, where they were accused of having received illegal commissions from the Swedish arms manufacturer for securing a contract from the Indian Army. They were later exonerated. In 2001, Hinduja and the Tony Blair government came in for fresh criticism for what was dubbed the “cash-for-passports” scandal. Hinduja had been granted British citizenship suspiciously after he made a substantial donation for London’s Millennium Dome.

Throughout the decades, however, the four brothers remained a closely-knit group. They appeared to have chalked out different responsibilities—Ashok looked after the group’s Indian operations in Mumbai; Prakash, based in Geneva, managed the group’s Europe interests; and Hinduja and Gopichand, living in London, took care of different aspects of the group’s interests. Their closeness was perhaps best encapsulated in a 2014 agreement the four brothers are believed to have signed, which was later challenged in court, where they claimed “everything belongs to everyone and nothing belongs to anyone.” But differences cropped up in recent years and an ugly dispute played out in the courts. Last year, it was revealed that a British court had even raised concerns that Hinduja, who was suffering from dementia, had been marginalised, and, at one stage, was considering placing the billionaire patriarch in a public nursing home. The family however called a truce.

With Hinduja’s death now, India and the world, loses one of the sharpest business minds of his generation.

About The Author

Lhendup G Bhutia

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