The employees are scheduled for a two-week tour, including visits to Hanoi, Ninh Binh, and Ha Long Bay in northern Vietnam.
Forbes estimated the pharmaceutical tycoon’s net worth at $29.3 billion as of Aug. 26. Despite his current role as chairman and managing director of a pharmaceutical giant with over $5 billion in annual revenues, Shanghvi’s journey began on a much smaller scale, as reported by news website DNA India.
Born in 1955 in a small town in the Indian state of Gujarat, he was raised in Kolkata, the capital of the West Bengal state, where his father ran a pharmaceutical trading company selling branded and generic drugs.
While studying for a bachelor’s degree in commerce at the University of Calcutta, Shanghvi helped his father with business and envisioned creating his own pharmaceutical products rather than just distributing others’.
This inspiration led him to borrow 10,000 Indian rupees (US$120) after graduating in 1982 to later found Sun Pharmaceutical Industries with a business partner, Pradeep Ghosh.
Initially based in Vapi, Gujarat, the company started as a modest two-person operation focused on a single drug for treating bipolar disorder.
Leveraging his business acumen and a strategy that focuses on acquisitions, Shanghvi experienced early success during Sun Pharmaceutical’s first year as the company rapidly expanded.
Recognizing the need for a manufacturing facility, he took out loans to create a production unit in Vapi and later established the Pharma Advanced Research Center to accelerate the development of generic drugs.
The following year, Sun Pharmaceutical went public on the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges, with 55 times more demand than available shares.
It expanded into the U.S. generic drug market in 1997 by acquiring Caraco Pharmaceuticals, which provided the firm access to the world’s largest market for generic drugs, its distributors, and expertise in dealing with the Food and Drug Administration.
Sun Pharmaceutical has acquired over a dozen pharmaceutical companies since then, focusing on integrating underperforming or unprofitable firms into Sun Pharmaceutical.
In 2014, the company announced its largest acquisition yet, the $4 billion purchase of Ranbaxy Laboratories, marking the biggest deal in Asia’s pharmaceutical sector that year.
The move surprised many, with Shanghvi’s employees describing him as India’s most aggressive promoter, whose calm demeanor belies his sharp instincts for acquiring some of the market’s riskiest assets, according to The Economic Times.
His investment decisions were not made on a whim either, as noted by the CEO of a midsize drugmaker. “He does them only when he is doubly sure that he is going to get the returns he wants,” the person said.
During an interview with The Economic Times in December 2013, Shanghvi demonstrated his trademark cautiousness, carefully managing what he revealed while still conveying his aspirations for his firm.
“My limitation is that I don’t have a clear vision beyond this year. I try to stay focused on what I need to deliver this year. As for the next year, we try and see that we remain consistent,” he said. “Essentially, we try to be better than what we were the previous year.”
When the deal was completed in March 2015, it positioned Sun Pharmaceutical as the largest pharmaceutical company in India and the fifth largest generic drug maker globally.
That year, Shanghvi briefly surpassed fellow billionaire Mukesh Ambani as India’s richest individual before the latter reclaimed the top spot a few months later.
Last March, Sun Pharmaceutical bolstered its position by acquiring Massachusetts-based Concert Pharmaceuticals for $576 million, business newspaper Financial Express reported.
Although widely acknowledged for his career achievements, Shanghvi tends to shy away from the media spotlight and is uneasy with the attention that immense wealth brings.
He maintains a low profile and seldom boasts about his financial status. His wife, Vibha, is sometimes seen on her trips to the local market in an auto rickshaw. Shanghvi loves South Indian food and dislikes traveling.
Though a voracious reader of pharma research papers, his reading interests also include lighter fare. A peer from Lupin, another drugmaker, once spotted him reading Harry Potter on a flight and later discovered that Shanghvi had read all seven of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy novels and speculated that his fondness for them might stem from his imaginative and creative nature.
Journalist-author Soma Das, who penned Shanghvi’s biography, said in a media statement quoted by CNBC: “Dilip Shanghvi is one of the most interesting and least understood business minds of India today. Until now, his journey has been shrouded in mystery partly because of his unwillingness to share it.”
The book seeks to explore the intense personality behind Shanghvi’s calm demeanor and to recount the story of his business journey, she said.
“For someone, unschooled in degrees of sciences and management who worked his way up from a tiny wholesale shop in the bylanes of Dawa Bazaar in Calcutta of the 1970s to create one of the country’s most valuable enterprises and become the richest self-made Indian in 2015, he is also one of the least studied capitalists,” she remarked.
Shanghvi rarely engages with the media and never reveals too much, but when asked challenging questions by reporters, he often responds with: “Let me gather my thoughts.”
