The Big Switch

Havells chairman Anil Rai Gupta is following in his father’s footsteps, but is also making some footprints of his own by taking the family-run company from just an electrical equipment maker to a consumer durables challenger.

- Arnika Thakur

WHEN INDIAN ELEC TRICAL equipment maker Havells bought European lighting goods company Sylvania for $300 million in 2007, the industry was stunned at the audacity of the move. Havells might have been one of the leading electrical goods companies in India, but Sylvania was a mutinational nearly twice its size. Apart from concerns about the difference in size, many also believed the Indian company had forked out too much for the acquisition.

But the Gupta family that owned Havells was convinced. After all, its legendary founder, Qimat Rai Gupta, had always been known for making daring decisions. He started his business in 1958 selling electrical goods in a small shop in a crowded market in Old Delhi; the story goes that some 13 years later, he bought out the Havells switch gear brand from a Delhi businessman, Haveli Ram Gandhi, for Rs 7 lakh. It was a staggering sum at the time, but Qimat Gupta obviously saw the potential.

Over time, he diversified into other products such as fans and geysers. Today, Havells is headed by his son, Anil Rai Gupta, and has a market capitalisation of more than Rs 34,000 crore and is present in more than 40 countries. Its light bulbs, tube-lights, cables, wires, and switch gear are ubiquitous, and it is one of the market leaders in each segment. “My father was a born entrepreneur… Born entrepreneurs are very few. What we have learnt to be is trained entrepreneurs under his tutelage for 20 years,” Anil Gupta, chairman and managing director of Havells, tells Fortune India.