anil agarwal: Govt has the ability to take very strong decisions now: Anil Agarwal

How did Anil Agarwal become Anil Agarwal? From very humble beginnings, you have become the largest resource company in India and the sixth largest in the world. How did you make the magic happen in a business which requires a lot of capital, money and government policies?

Aaj subah mein Air India se utra, Air India ka experience mein aapko bata sakta hun ( I got down from Air India in the morning), what a pleasant experience it was. The plane was clean, the food was good, very pleasant.

You have flown business class, not the economy class.

Mereko usne bataya wo duty manager neeche utra usne kaha ki sir salary jo ek tareekh ko nahi milti hai, ab 15 tareekh ko milti hai. Aapke hath mein touch hai. Aap is company ko le lijiye, hum logon ka bhala ho jayega. (The duty manager told me, “we used to get the salary on the 1st of every month. Now it is coming on 15th. Why don’t you take over the company. It will be good for us!)

After that I found that the most amazing weather in the whole world was in Mumbai. Everywhere else, it is too cold. I think, any Indian businessmen given a chance would do better than Anil Agarwal. It is all about the kind of entrepreneurship that we have in India, in Bihar where we come from. We have a tremendous capability of taking risk! It is all about taking risks. This is not a big thing that I have done.

Now is the time that the government should change the policy. The bureaucrats should formulate policies, not try to execute them. I am still the same when I left the Bihar so there is no difference in me.

We want to understand your journey. How did you take risk? You are not running an Indian empire, it is a global empire. It is an empire which a couple of decades ago was dominated by global players. With limited capital, you managed to make a company which has a turnover of nearly Rs 1 lakh crore in less than 30 years?
It was a very humble beginning. I come from Bihar and I always wanted to be in business. I did my Class 10 and then started a scrap business and moved to Mumbai. I had never seen a city like Mumbai. I found that Mumba Devi was a great temple so I was going everyday and praying that please keep me here. I was staying in the Kalbadevi at a lodge which cost me Rs 21 a day. It was amazing buying the scrap, selling without knowing a word of English. I spent three years this way. After that, I acquired a company which had gone on receivership. That company belonged to Syndicate Bank and I acquired that company for Rs 60 lakh. I found that some Rs 20-30 lakh worth material was available in that company and thus I started the journey.

60-70% of the money in the world is in equity and we always do a business which has the equity potential. The equity potential is very important. Anybody, who is doing the business must keep in mind that 100% ownership private business is not going to work. How can you grow big unless you have created credibility in the market? We went for public listing. I went to London and nobody recognised me.

I was working very hard but my market cap was not going above 100 million in India. So I delisted here and went to London and listed there with market cap at $2 billion. It became a FTSE 100 company for 10 years. I raised $40 billion there. I could have gone to the US, Australia or anywhere else in the world. But I wanted to go back to India. I invested $35 billion in India over 10 years. I bought Hindustan Zinc, Balco, Goa, altogether 13 companies. All 13 are doing well.

There is no other government in the world which has so much majority. This government has the ability to take strong decisions. If we can’t advance now, we will never advance.

We are talking about old economy and new economy. I am from the older generation, I think in terms of old economy. India 14-15 good banks and 40-45 companies. Government has no business to be in a business. I have acquired four government companies. All four have become three times more productive and shown tremendous capability. Today government holds 87% on an average in this company, including banks. If they bring down their holding to 50% they will get $1 trillion.

All our companies are still run by the public sector people and the kind of capability they have it is unparalleled. Private bank market cap is $40 billion while that of the government bank is $1 billion. I don’t understand why? They have a better clientele, they have better management. The only thing the public is looking forward to is that they run independently.