This is a story of a man whose dislike for his father’s trade and his inability to lie transformed him into one of the early entrepreneurs of Hyderabad. Sixty years down the line G. Mangilal Surana presides over one of the oldest business houses in Hyderabad, the Surana Group, a major player in copper, automotive and solar panels.
“My father, Gulab Chand Surana, was a wholesale food grain trader at Monda Market in Secunderabad, in the early 1940s. He was a supplier to the British Army. As I was not interested in it, I set up dal mills at Lucknow and Kanpur. This started my business career,” recalls the 83-year-old Surana, who played an active political role, first as a Youth Congress member in Hyderabad and later as a confidant of several national Congress leaders.
How did the miller become an industrialist? “I had a great working relationship with Lal Bahadur Shastri and also Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Shastri Ji, the then Union industries minister, told me to open a small scale industry in Hyderabad. Upon his advice, I founded a nail factory in 1959,” said the patriarch of the Surana Group, who has seen Hyderabad grow from the capital of a princely state to India’s major technology hub.
He studied law at Osmania University Law College, in the Urdu Medium, but did not take up the practice as he could not argue a case if he knew that his client was wrong.
His sons Narender and Devender entered the business in 1982 and 1988 respectively. The group now claims an annual turnover of `500 crore with a fixed asset base of `400 crore. Also the group’s 100-acre land bank in and around Hyderabad at current market prices would roughly be worth over `1,000 crore.
Narender, 52, heads the group’s solar, cables and real estate businesses while his younger brother Devendra takes care of the group’s flagship firm Bhagyanagar India, which manufactures copper-based industrial products.
Surana Ventures has the capacity to install 140 megawatt solar panels. Half of this came from its acquisition of a production line from German solar maker Schiff Solar. “While other solar companies are making losses, we can compete with anybody, including Chinese companies,” says a confident Narender.
Meanwhile 47-year-old Devendra Surana, a mechanical engineer and an IIM-Bangalore alumnus, heads the group’s flagship company Bhagyanagar India Ltd, which makes copper-based industrial products such as copper rods, copper sheets, copper foils. “Almost every vehicle on the road will have our copper foils, which we supply to all automobile companies,” says Devendra, who is also the president of Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Fapcci).
“We expect a steady growth of 10 to 15 per cent in tune with the industry’s trajectory,” says the soft-spoken Devendra, who loves to play badminton at Secunderabad Club.
Narender, meanwhile, loves tennis and watching comedy and action movies. “Once a week, I watch a movie with my family. But I am not the type of person, who can sit through the serious movies. I mostly prefer comedy or action movies,” he reveals.
This Marwari-Jain family is still a closely-knit unit with G.M. Surana at the head. Though living separately, the decisions about the group companies are made collectively.
“All male members of the family meet every day for half an hour from 8 am to 8.30 am to review what happened the day before and discuss the future course of action. So it’s a kind of board meeting every day,” says G.M. Surana, who feels that the days of joint family are over.
“My father used to head a family of 50 members including his family and his four brothers. His word was always final. But times have changed; we can’t expect such behaviour now. In all traditional business families, the second generation may be ready to work around the differences but the problems begin with the third generation, when cousins don’t get along,” says G.M. Surana.
Narender’s son, Manish, joined the group in 2008. A management graduate from Icfai and an alumnus of Harvard Business School, the 26-year-old Surana scion looks after the production of solar panels and EPC business. He is also into brand building and promotion of the group’s solar vertical.
Vinita, Narender’s elder daughter, is studying business management at Wharton Business School in the United States while younger daughter Shresha is studying at St. Francis College, and is the college’s chess captain.
Among Devendra’s children, elder daughter Nivriti is married and the other three, Rahul, 20, Mitali, 17, and Advait, 17, are completing their education.
Meanwhile, the women of the Surana family, Chand Kanwar, G.M. Surana’s wife, Sunita, Narender’s wife, and Namrata, Devendra’s wife, are all homemakers.
Chand Kanwar has been active in the Jain women’s wing while sisters Sunita and Namrata spend their time in household activities, reading, and meditation among others.
source: http://www.DeccanChronicle.com / Home> Lifestyle> Offbeat / DC / by S. Umamaheshwar / March 10th, 2013
