Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: GOPICHAND P. Hinduja, the influential Chairman of the Hinduja Group and one of the four brothers who forged a massive global conglomerate, passed away in a London hospital on November 4, at the age of 85. Known affectionately as ‘GP’ in business circles, his death marks the end of an era for one of the world’s largest diversified groups.
He leaves behind his wife, Sunita, his sons Sanjay and Dheeraj, and his daughter, Rita, and a sprawling, diversified conglomerate that spans all continents and employs around 200,000 people worldwide.
Born in 1940, Gopichand, the second of the four brothers, received his education at Mumbai’s Jai Hind College, graduating in 1959. In the same year, he began his career by joining the family’s established trading business in Mumbai and Tehran.
The Hinduja empire was founded by his father, Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, who had started trading goods in the Sindh region of undivided India and later shifted the base to Iran in 1919. Gopichand’s story is one of transformation. He was a key architect in evolving the group from an Indo-Middle East trading operation into a multi-billion-dollar transnational powerhouse.
The pivotal moment in this expansion came with two major acquisitions – purchase of Gulf Oil in 1984, followed by the bold acquisition of a thenstruggling Indian automotive manufacturer, Ashok Leyland, in 1987. The latter acquisition was one of the earliest and most significant investments by a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) in India, and it went on to become a remarkable turnaround story in Indian corporate history.
His personal contribution was central to the group’s diversification and global reach. He was the driving force behind the group’s later expansion into the vital power and infrastructure sectors, leading the vision to build multigigawatt energy capacity across India. He also championed the strengthening of the group’s financial footprint through entities like IndusInd Bank. His business philosophy was often summarised simply as ‘common sense.’
The Hinduja Group was not without its challenges. For many years, the family faced public scrutiny and persistent denials over their alleged involvement in the Bofors scandal, though all three accused brothers were eventually exonerated by the Delhi High Court in 2005.
More recently, the once closely-knit Hinduja family also faced a highly publicised rift and ownership dispute. Despite these hurdles, Gopichand and his family were consistently ranked among the wealthiest people in the UK.
Gopichand Hinduja took over as Chairman of the Hinduja Group and Hinduja Automotive Ltd in the UK following the death of his elder brother, Srichand Hinduja, in May 2023.