Sudhir Mehta

Sudhir Mehta has taken the Torrent Group to newer areas. What started as Trinity Laboratories in the 1970s is now a Rs 11,800 crore business conglomerate with interests in areas like pharmaceuticals and power.An extremely media shy person, Mehta is known for staying away from interviews and press briefings. Yet, the Torrent captain is known for being a hardcore Gujarati businessman with a keen acumen on identifying growth sectors. Besides, the soft-spoken Mehta, however, is known for his people management skills.

The foundations for Torrent were laid when Trinity Laboratories began operations in the early 1970s, a company started by Mehta's father, U N Mehta. Mehta senior had initiated a concept of niche marketing, and his journey reached a milestone in 1970 with the launch of Trinicalm Plus, an effective tranquiliser in the niche segment, central nervous system (CNS).

After his death, his elder son Sudhir took over as the chairman of the Group in 1998. The 1954-born entrepreneur turned his focus on exports, and he was instrumental is charting out the company's entry into the international markets.

He forayed into the Russian market at a time when the region was going through turbulent times in terms of political instability. His decision paid off, as Torrent today has a strong presence in the European countries, Russia as well as Brazil.

Together with his brother Samir Mehta, he focussed on building manufacturing facilities.Torrent Pharma now has manufacturing facilities in Mehsana in Gujarat, apart from one each in tax havens of Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

The astute businessman in Sudhir Mehta was quick to foresee the emerging opportunities in the power sector and he lead Torrent’s foray into this sector by acquiring controlling stake in the Ahmedabad Electricity Co. Ltd and the Surat Electricity Co. Ltd.

Around 1991, when the Central government announced major policy changes allowing private sector participation in the power sector, Sudhir had started quietly acquiring the shares in the above companies and finally gained a majority stake by late 1990s. Simultaneously, he announced plans to set up a 655 Mw dual fuel combined cycle power project in Gujarat.

He commissioned the project within the budgeted schedule and cost, and then proposed setting up the 1,147.5 Mw Sugen gas-fired power station, which was recently dedicated to the nation. It is the largest gas-based power project of an independent power producer.

Today Torrent Power has a generation capacity of 2101 MW and distributes power to 2.76 million customers in Ahmedabad,Gandhinagar and Surat in Gujarat, Bhiwandi in Maharashtra and Agra in Uttar Pradesh. Sudhir and Samir also feature in the Forbes India Rich List. As on October 2013, their networth stands at around $1.18 billion.