Srichand Hinduja, businessman, 1935-2023 | Financial Times

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Srichand Hinduja led a business empire that grew from a modest trading firm in India and Iran in the mid-20th century to a vast global network with interests ranging from automobile manufacturing, IT and petroleum.

But for all his business successes, in the UK Hinduja’s name evokes a passport row involving one of New Labor’s architects, Peter Mandelson, who resigned from Tony Blair’s cabinet over the affair.

Hinduja, who died at the age of 87, was the eldest of a group of brothers known as India’s ‘fabulous four’. He was a fierce networker who threw opulent parties for the rich and powerful, and cultivated contacts from George HW Bush to Michael Jackson. But he was also a deeply religious man who did not touch alcohol or meat and, before the onset of his dementia, prayed in a Hindu temple at least once a day.

Born in 1935 in the Sindh province of present-day Pakistan, Hinduja’s family settled in Tehran, Iran, where his father Parmanand had set up a business as a dry goods trader.

Hindus have broadened their interests in Iran, distributing Farsi-dubbed Indian films and supplying uniforms to the military. The brothers developed a relationship with the Shah and profited from it when the 1974 oil crisis drove up prices. But they left the country just before the 1979 revolution. Hinduja moved to London along with his brother Gopichand, while Prakash went to Geneva and Ashok to Mumbai.

From his business headquarters at New Zealand House in London’s Haymarket, Hinduja, known as SP, has expanded the family’s assets beyond an old-fashioned commodity trading business. In 1987, they made their first major investment in a public company, with the purchase of a majority stake in automobile manufacturer Ashok Leyland.

A wide range of other investments followed, from telecommunications to energy. As of last year, the Hindujas were Britain’s richest family, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, whose £28bn fortune includes interests in IT supplier Hinduja Global Solutions, IndusInd Bank and Gulf Oil International. The Hinduja group employs around 200,000 people worldwide, and the family’s other assets include a house in London near Buckingham Palace.

As the head of one of Britain’s most prominent business families, Hinduja endeared himself to conservative political heavyweights, including former British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, Edward Heath and John Major.

He subsequently developed close links with New Labour. Encouraged by Mandelson, who was then the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Hinduja came to the rescue of the government’s troubled Millennium Dome by providing funds for the project. Mandelson has been accused of helping Hinduja gain British citizenship and was forced to resign in 2001 over his claims. A subsequent investigation cleared the politician of any impropriety.

The brothers have been known for their close bond for decades and loved to be seen together, even appearing in similar outfits. In an interview with the Financial Times in 1994, Srichand once explained that the family did not believe in wills. “All children belong to everyone. Everyone works as a duty”.

Yet Hinduja was no stranger to tragedy. His son Dharam died in 1992 of severe burns. Press reports at the time claimed that his death was a suicide pact with his new wife and claimed that the family had rejected her as a suitable bride. Hinduja did not accept either claim.

Recent legal cases have laid bare a dispute at the heart of the family. In 2019, Hinduja filed a civil case in the High Court in London against her three brothers over the validity of a letter signed by the four of them in 2014, which stated that any property held in an individual brother’s name belonged to all four. The case has been suspended and the two sides are trying to reach a settlement.

In his later years, Hinduja was seen more as a philanthropist than a tycoon, having given gifts to Cambridge and Harvard universities and Indian hospitals. However, until his health deteriorated, he was never away from the family business. As patriarch, he remained faithful to the end.