First offices: How Amul, Marico, Emami, and other conglomerates started out

EMAMI GROUP
Way back in the early 1970s, Emami Group founders RS Agarwal and RS Goenka started out by renting 200 sq ft inside a bigger room on the first floor of a heritage building called Mullick Kothi in North Kolkata. Separated from other tenants by plywood partitions, this was where they launched their personal care brands like Emami Vanishing Cream and Emami Talcum Powder.

“We owe our business success to this place. Every visit to this place even now evokes nostalgia and fond memories. The positive vibe of this place is still intact. When we found this beautiful property in a run-down condition, it made us sad. We wanted to give back to this property what it had given us,” say the founders of the ₹20,000-crore group.

A couple of years ago, they decided to acquire and restore the 150-year-old building and use it for the group’s philanthropic activities.

—Pranit Sarda