When Richard Li, a 25-year-old business tycoon
from Hong Kong, flew down to India in early
1992, one of the items on his agenda was to call
on Subhash Chandra, a relatively small but
wealthy businessman, who had agreed to pay $5
million to lease a transponder on Li’s AsiaSat satellite. For Chandra, who was still in his early
40s, this meant he could, by October that year, set
up Zee TV, India’s first private Hindi satellite
channel. Convincing the often-mercurial Li was
not easy, going by Chandra’s earlier experience
of negotiating with him in Hong Kong. It was only after Li came to India and was shown
Chandra’s existing businesses that the deal was
inked. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. By then, Chandra,
whose family was once engaged in rice trading,
was a significant player in the manufacture of
laminated tubes (Essel Packaging) and had
already had his first brush with the
entertainment world in the mid-1980s when he moved into the theme park space. The project,
Essel World, located on the outskirts of Mumbai,
had slowly begun to make an impact after a
lukewarm start. Having sufficiently impressed Li,
the younger son of Li Ka-Shing, chairman of
Hutchison Whampoa and the owner of Star TV, with his scale of operations and financial heft and
with the crucial deal in the bag, Chandra decided
to invite him home for dinner. On impulse, he
called a friend in the advertising industry and
asked him to come over, bringing along a couple
of young models. “My wife was shocked when she saw the models and actually became very
unwell for three weeks afterwards. She fervently
requested me not to enter this business,” Chandra
recalls. “I promised her I would not run after any
of those girls and then she was convinced,” says
the Essel Group chairman with a hearty laugh.for full story source business.outlookindia.com | The Dream Merchant
from Hong Kong, flew down to India in early
1992, one of the items on his agenda was to call
on Subhash Chandra, a relatively small but
wealthy businessman, who had agreed to pay $5
million to lease a transponder on Li’s AsiaSat satellite. For Chandra, who was still in his early
40s, this meant he could, by October that year, set
up Zee TV, India’s first private Hindi satellite
channel. Convincing the often-mercurial Li was
not easy, going by Chandra’s earlier experience
of negotiating with him in Hong Kong. It was only after Li came to India and was shown
Chandra’s existing businesses that the deal was
inked. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. By then, Chandra,
whose family was once engaged in rice trading,
was a significant player in the manufacture of
laminated tubes (Essel Packaging) and had
already had his first brush with the
entertainment world in the mid-1980s when he moved into the theme park space. The project,
Essel World, located on the outskirts of Mumbai,
had slowly begun to make an impact after a
lukewarm start. Having sufficiently impressed Li,
the younger son of Li Ka-Shing, chairman of
Hutchison Whampoa and the owner of Star TV, with his scale of operations and financial heft and
with the crucial deal in the bag, Chandra decided
to invite him home for dinner. On impulse, he
called a friend in the advertising industry and
asked him to come over, bringing along a couple
of young models. “My wife was shocked when she saw the models and actually became very
unwell for three weeks afterwards. She fervently
requested me not to enter this business,” Chandra
recalls. “I promised her I would not run after any
of those girls and then she was convinced,” says
the Essel Group chairman with a hearty laugh.for full story source business.outlookindia.com | The Dream Merchant
