Anil Agarwal, founder and chairman of Vedanta Resources, promised his late grandfather that he would pledge 75 percent of his wealth to philanthropy
Image: Mexy Xavier
As he strides across the living room of his residence in South Mumbai, Anil Agarwal looks into the distance where leafy greens give way to sweeping views of the Arabian Sea. “It is often said that what you take from the Ganga, you must return to the Ganga,” says the billionaire boss of Vedanta Resources. Dressed in a sober blue suit and rectangular-framed glasses, Agarwal is a towering figure in India Inc. Not just because he’s almost six feet tall, but also because the self-made industrialist’s London-listed natural resources conglomerate, which turned over $11.5 billion last fiscal, is the sixth biggest in the world (by Ebitda). And with a personal fortune of $3.2 billion he is ranked 44 on the 2017 Forbes India Rich List. (Up from rank 63 and $1.86 billion last year.)
Yet the description of a billionaire disappoints him. “I have pledged most of my wealth. Where are the billions?” he says referring to his promise to give away 75 percent of his fortune to philanthropy—a decision he took with his family in 2014. In fact, even getting this interview with him was difficult. Time constraints aside, Agarwal is disconcerted about being profiled among India’s richest, as this issue of Forbes India sets out to do. “Money is important. It gives you confidence. But I never came from that background, so it makes me uncomfortable,” says Agarwal, whose shaven head and light grey stubble lend him a more rough-and-tumble look.
In his early years growing up in the constricted bylanes of Goria Toli in Patna, Bihar, life was hard, recollects Agarwal. He schooled till the age of 14, barely learning a word of English, and dabbled in his father’s aluminium conductor business. When his ambitions outgrew what Patna could offer, Agarwal, aged 19, journeyed to (then) Bombay to make it as a scrap metal dealer. That was in the mid-1970s. “At that time my only purpose was to make money, to succeed,” confesses the 64-year-old in still patchy English, despite having lived in London for 19 years.
Today, having grown Vedanta Resources into a global giant with operations in aluminium, zinc, lead, silver, power, copper, iron ore and oil and gas crossing four continents and a market capitalisation of around $3.1 billion, Agarwal’s ambitions have changed. The founder, chairman and, with his family, owner of a 69 percent stake in the company, still wants to grow Vedanta and has long talked of turning it into the next BHP or Rio Tinto. But through that growth he wants to give back. By developing India’s natural resources sector, he believes, jobs will be created and poverty eradicated. “India needs many more companies like ours,” he says. In turn, Vedanta’s growth fuels Agarwal’s philanthropic ambitions. He recalls a time about ten years ago when his late grandfather took an oath from him. “He wanted me to pledge 90 percent of my wealth. I negotiated and we settled on 75 percent,” he says, chuckling infectiously.
(This story appears in the 29 December, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)