He’s the only businessman from Nepal in the Forbes Billionaire’s listing, which is nice, but the 58-year-old Binod Chaudhury really gets his kicks from pushing boundaries of his rapidly expanding global empire.
The Chairman of the Chaudhury Group, who has Marwari roots, has carried on the legacy started by his grandfather, Bhuramall Chaudhury, and created a global conglomerate with businesses ranging from FMCG and financial services to hospitality and education, spread across 45 countries.
Now his three sons, Rahul, Nirvana and Varun are leading the expansion under the umbrella of Cinnovation Group, that’s headquartered out of Singapore. In a chat with CD, Chaudhury talks about dreaming big, why wisdom is not the monopoly of Harvards and MITs and how cracking difficult markets is his USP. Edited excerpts:
Coming from a small country like Nepal, how did you manage to build a global business?
God has been great. It’s been 120 years of hard work of three generations. What I inherited in financial terms was not big, but there was a tremendous amount of goodwill that my father had generated which came to me. My wife actually says I like saying that I am a small man from a small country with a big dream. It’s all about how you look at the world.
What is your ambition? How do you put together the needed resources? How do you establish creditability so that people support you in your endeavor? It is a matter of putting together what it takes to make it big. Whether you hail from Nepal or Bhutan or from a huge country like India, it does not matter. The MITs and Harvards don’t have a monopoly on wisdom – it’s also there in a village in Bihar. If you have good ideas today, resources follow you.
How did you get a global mindset?
As a matter of fact, Nepal has been much more connected with the world. In the 60s and 70s, Nepal was like Hong Kong and Singapore for Indians. The markets were full of foreign goods that were imported from Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea. We were exporting jute to Europe.
My grandfather used to import textiles from Ahmedabad and sell it to the Rana household. It was a very small company, a one-man operation. Then my father started trading with Japan. I call Japan my B-school. I went there in 1973 and I used to bring textiles from Osaka, Kobe. Then I took the business to the next level by dealing with companies like Panasonic, Suzuki.
How did the Wai Wai journey start?
I stepped into the business 30 years ago, at the age of 18. My dad had a heart problem. He had started work on the biscuit factory when the market was dominated by Indian brands, like Britannia, Parle. We were the first biscuit factory in the country and Pashupati became a big brand. We also established a flour plant as backward integration.
The flour that we were producing was not even one-tenth of what we were consuming in biscuits. So I was looking for other flour-based products. I used to travel to Bangkok very often and on the baggage belt at Kathmandu airport, I would see cartons of noodles that people had started importing.
Why not produce noodles in Nepal, I thought. That is how Wai Wai was born. In India, we have a 25% market share in the North Eastern states. We export to more than 30 countries in Africa, Middle East and ASEAN.
How do you sniff opportunities in a fast changing world?
In a fast changing world, conventional industries sometimes become irrelevant. From hardware, it has become a software-oriented world. You need to be able to grab the right ideas at the right time and then come up with the proper strategy.
Take education vertical for example, we are one of the largest players in education in Nepal. We have our own brand called Chandbagh, which is patterned along the lines of Doon school. We have partnerships with DPS, Manipal and Pearson. We want to be a global player in education and we are actively pursuing partnerships.
How have you approached internationalisation of group operations?
Once you are clear about your objectives, you think of a strategy to get the right partners. We have always worked with partners. If I am going to do business in Africa, it’s impossible for me to develop a completely new organization which is capable of dealing with all the local issues.
Every country has its local issues. It calls for a local network; it calls for understanding of local laws. So we have always felt that we need like-minded partners. That is how we built our organisation.
You have taken some bold risks, like investing in Dubai real estate, and that tanked for some years.
One of the reasons why we were able to build this group in a short time and take it to this level is because we have always worked in very difficult territories. You can say the USP of Cinnovation is to go into crisis-ridden markets at a time nobody else will enter. When we went to Sri Lanka, companies there who were already partners of Taj (Indian Hotels are partners in 3 hotels) were not prepared to invest.
When I was presented with the opportunity, I grabbed it because I felt it was the best time to enter. When nobody is a taker, you do this, otherwise why would a group like Taj partner with somebody from Nepal? We grew in Nepal when it was Maoist-ridden. The problem started in 1995, but we have never stopped and now have expanded to 12 verticals. In the north-eastern Indian states, we are one of the biggest noodle players. Nobody wants to go there due to ULFA and Bodoland.
Don’t such risks bother you?
It does not worry us because we have always believed that if your mind is clear, you know how to develop your network and if you work with the people, even the people who are agitating, I will not go to the extent of saying terrorist, but even the ultra revolutionist movement, you will succeed. They also need employment, economic activity. So long as you don’t step on their toes, they are okay.
In Africa also, we have chosen East Africa, a very difficult region. Regulated, mature, highly sophisticated business environment doesn’t offer much opportunity. There is no room for real entrepreneurship.
Nepal has seen 22 governments in 20 years. How did you manage to succeed in a politically volatile environment?
It is a question of being reasonable. First of all, I think you, as a corporation, have to identify yourself with the local people and their sentiments. If the people have true respect for you, that it is my company, it is my country’s company, it is an honest company, it is an ethical company, it is a company which gives me good product at a reasonable price, they will stand by you.
Once they stand by you, political parties have to stand by you. No matter which government comes, they have no choice but to protect you and support you. There are such corporations in India, like the Tatas.
What are the targets you have set for your three sons?
They should continue to grow the verticals that they are leading. The three boys run 30% of the businesses, but 70% of it is run by boys who may not be Chaudhurys, but they are more important to the group than any one of them. They are equally talented, creative, gracious and competent. That is how the group is growing.
Now what’s next for you, personally?
I have come to a stage where I’m involved in helping Nepal in my political role. It is the most embarrassing moment for me whenever people ask me about being a billionaire from Nepal, which is one of the poorest countries. I want to do whatever I can to transform that country’s economy. I want to work with the governments, with the parties, to help them. It is possible for it is a small country.
How Nepal"s first billionaire Binod Chaudhury is building a global empire
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