Here’s what we know about the man who earned a paltry sum of ₹250 a month in 1971 and who is now an influential businessman with a net worth of a billion dollars, according to Forbes.
Born to a family with modest resources, RK Sinha became a trainee reporter, a part-time job to support his folks, after a degree in political science in 1971 when India was at war with Pakistan. The publication reportedly sent him to the front where he befriended soldiers from the Bihar Regiment.
Sinha supported the movement led by Jaiprakash Narayan in 1973 after the war. This cost him his job as a reporter. The next employer offered him a salary of ₹250 a month, which wasn’t appealing.
One of Sinha’s friends who had a construction business wanted ex-servicemen to protect his sites. Sinha gathered a bunch of soldiers he had befriended during the war and, in 1974, he laid the foundation of SIS Group in Patna.
Within a year of its establishment, SIS had at least 250 employees and a revenue of ₹1 lakh. With DE Shaw as one of its investors, SIS bought an Australian company, Chubb, for $235 million in 2008.
Today, with over 36,000 permanent employees and 3,000 corporate clients, according to the website, SIS makes most of its revenue from Australia. His son and the current managing director of SIS, Rituraj Kishore Sinha, joined the family business in 2002 after graduating from Leeds Business School in the UK. The turnover was worth only ₹25 crore at that point, according to the company’s Wikipedia page.
SIS has also formed a joint venture with Spain’s Prosegur to provide cash logistics services. Fun fact, RK Sinha was also one of the founding members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has also been a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament.
(Edited by : Sriram Iyer)