people. 40
PART II
LAKSHMI • WEALTH
7
FALCON 900
I N THE LAST CENTURY , the world’s personal wealth was held in American, European, Arab and occasionally East Asian hands. Something changed—by 2008, four of the eight richest people alive were Indian. Alongside them in the
Forbes
Top 10 were a German, a Russian, a Swede, two Americans (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) and the Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Hélu, whose father was a Maronite Christian from Lebanon who had, in the son’s words, “escaped the yoke of the Ottoman empire” at the age of fourteen by moving to Mexico. 1
Sunil Bharti Mittal’s net worth was estimated at $8bn. Unlike many other successful Indian business people, who had developed existing operations or used their talents to flourish in a foreign market, he was wholly self-made and had created his fortune on Indian soil. Now he was expanding. When I met him in 2010, Mittal’s company, Bharti Airtel, had just taken over the telecom operator Zain in fifteen African countries. Like other aggressive entrepreneurs, Mittal saw undeveloped territories as the future; the purchase of Zain for $10.7bn was the largest ever cross-border deal in an emerging market. 2 His intention was to grow in Africa as rapidly as he had in India. It was not unlike the rough capitalism in the U.S. in the nineteenth century, when men like Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller made sudden, inconceivable fortunes. While Russian oligarchs had bought upstate assets at knockdown prices, Indian entrepreneurs were able to take advantage of sudden advances in technology, or to corner a particular market when the economy expanded in the wake of globalization. Sunil Mittal had placed himself in exactly the right position to take advantage of a moment in his nation’s history when a great fortune could be made.
At the Bharti Airtel offices in Mayfair, the brass Zain Services plaque was still in place beside the front door. Mittal was on a flying visit to Europe, zipping between countries and spending just over a day in England. Except for a receptionist or secretary and a tank of fat goldfish, the office was empty: the new dispensation had yet to put its people in place. While I waited for Sunil Mittal, a member of the old regime arrived. This man was tall, white, stooping, grey-haired, distinguished, and he peered at me over the top of his half-moon spectacles as he sat down at a desk. He tapped listlessly at a computer keyboard. The secretary walked over to him, and they had a little exchange.
“I didn’t have time to do your refund for the hotel bill. I’ve been doing things for Bharti,” she said. Ignored, she went on: “I’ll do my best to do it this afternoon.”
He stared straight ahead and said in an acidulous upper-class English accent, in which the emotion conveyed the opposite implication to the words: “You’re very kind.”
Next, an executive of the Bharti empire knocked on a glass-panelled door. She was stuck on the wrong side of it. The secretary rushed to open it and wedged the door ajar. “How am I meant to get in if you are not here?” asked the Bharti executive. “Mrs. Mittal will be here in ten minutes. Have you met Mrs. Mittal before? You might want to go down and meet her.” She was tense, serious. The keycode for the door was produced.
Sunil Mittal appeared out of the elevator. He had come from a meeting in another part of London. In his early fifties, he wore a suit with a blue shirt and tie, and red strings from the temple were wound around his right wrist. He had no entourage with him. Bypassing both the old and new guard, we went to a meeting room. His manner was direct, unpretentious. I asked him how he had started out. When asked this question, many people in India will give a disquisition on the achievements of their forebears. Mittal did not do this. Instead, he said how much he had hated studying at college.
“I preferred rifle shooting, playing cricket and table-tennis,
PART II
LAKSHMI • WEALTH
7
FALCON 900
I N THE LAST CENTURY , the world’s personal wealth was held in American, European, Arab and occasionally East Asian hands. Something changed—by 2008, four of the eight richest people alive were Indian. Alongside them in the
Forbes
Top 10 were a German, a Russian, a Swede, two Americans (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) and the Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Hélu, whose father was a Maronite Christian from Lebanon who had, in the son’s words, “escaped the yoke of the Ottoman empire” at the age of fourteen by moving to Mexico. 1
Sunil Bharti Mittal’s net worth was estimated at $8bn. Unlike many other successful Indian business people, who had developed existing operations or used their talents to flourish in a foreign market, he was wholly self-made and had created his fortune on Indian soil. Now he was expanding. When I met him in 2010, Mittal’s company, Bharti Airtel, had just taken over the telecom operator Zain in fifteen African countries. Like other aggressive entrepreneurs, Mittal saw undeveloped territories as the future; the purchase of Zain for $10.7bn was the largest ever cross-border deal in an emerging market. 2 His intention was to grow in Africa as rapidly as he had in India. It was not unlike the rough capitalism in the U.S. in the nineteenth century, when men like Cornelius Vanderbilt and John D. Rockefeller made sudden, inconceivable fortunes. While Russian oligarchs had bought upstate assets at knockdown prices, Indian entrepreneurs were able to take advantage of sudden advances in technology, or to corner a particular market when the economy expanded in the wake of globalization. Sunil Mittal had placed himself in exactly the right position to take advantage of a moment in his nation’s history when a great fortune could be made.
At the Bharti Airtel offices in Mayfair, the brass Zain Services plaque was still in place beside the front door. Mittal was on a flying visit to Europe, zipping between countries and spending just over a day in England. Except for a receptionist or secretary and a tank of fat goldfish, the office was empty: the new dispensation had yet to put its people in place. While I waited for Sunil Mittal, a member of the old regime arrived. This man was tall, white, stooping, grey-haired, distinguished, and he peered at me over the top of his half-moon spectacles as he sat down at a desk. He tapped listlessly at a computer keyboard. The secretary walked over to him, and they had a little exchange.
“I didn’t have time to do your refund for the hotel bill. I’ve been doing things for Bharti,” she said. Ignored, she went on: “I’ll do my best to do it this afternoon.”
He stared straight ahead and said in an acidulous upper-class English accent, in which the emotion conveyed the opposite implication to the words: “You’re very kind.”
Next, an executive of the Bharti empire knocked on a glass-panelled door. She was stuck on the wrong side of it. The secretary rushed to open it and wedged the door ajar. “How am I meant to get in if you are not here?” asked the Bharti executive. “Mrs. Mittal will be here in ten minutes. Have you met Mrs. Mittal before? You might want to go down and meet her.” She was tense, serious. The keycode for the door was produced.
Sunil Mittal appeared out of the elevator. He had come from a meeting in another part of London. In his early fifties, he wore a suit with a blue shirt and tie, and red strings from the temple were wound around his right wrist. He had no entourage with him. Bypassing both the old and new guard, we went to a meeting room. His manner was direct, unpretentious. I asked him how he had started out. When asked this question, many people in India will give a disquisition on the achievements of their forebears. Mittal did not do this. Instead, he said how much he had hated studying at college.
“I preferred rifle shooting, playing cricket and table-tennis,
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