ET’s weekly roundup of the wackiest whispers and murmurs in corporate corridors & policy parlours
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Kolkata during Christmas is like a kaleidoscope of Raj life. In between La nuit Park Street, phuchkaas, sunset boat rides from Princep Ghat, plum cakes, pork sausages from Entally and prawn cocktails, if you get an invitation from this power couple — aesthetes, hoteliers, real estate moguls and former cement czars — for a laugh and a loaf, or shall we say a swadisht marwari meal at their home, you just have to land up with an appetite. And so last week, in honour of their bon vivant buddy and his wife, who were visiting the metropolis, they threw a lavish dinner that had the most interesting crowd. A veteran newsman and a publisher mingled with a legendary neurosurgeon, a stock broker-turned-sports entrepreneur, a jeweller for the kings for the last 142 years, two of Bollywood’s finest character actors who are putting stars half their age to shame with their craft, a city boy turned tea tycoon and carpet czar and a veteran Lazard banker who went on to become a senior statesman on many a corporate board. With such a guest list, would you give an arm and a leg to attend? Oops, it’s strictly vegetarian.
Towering Ambitions
From the record highs of the mid 2000s, when the company was a stock market darling, to a near 100% drop in its share price, making it a penny stock these days, this young managing director has seen unprecedented volatility, much like the industry that he’s in. Inspired by other towering structures that billionaires of Maximum City so pine for, the scion in question is also keen to have an address he thinks can carry the weight of his surname. If only his shareholders and lenders were so lucky.
Space Wars
When this multi-billionaire tycoon bought the building that once housed three movie theatres named after a Raj Kapoor classic neighbouring his corporate HQ, everyone thought it’s business as usual. A growing empire is always in need of quality office space and if it’s available next door, its best to buy and build afresh as per your needs. Covid had stopped work but now a little bird tells us the matter is stuck in litigation and threats with an element of corporate shadow boxing. Whatever be the case, an easy resolution does not seem in sight as here too matters are caught up in cross connections.
Singh is King
Fees don’t matter when it comes to having Arijit Singh — the ballad badshah of Bollywood and a bill topper for any billionaire worth his 11-digit bank balance — in the house. Singh was the star at the recent lavish birthday bash at the farmhouse of Pune’s top party boy, who buys EPL clubs on a whim, sponsors top ATP players to be ambassadors for his protein brand and runs a sprawling food to vaccine to hatcheries empire with siblings. It was the same Mareez e Ishq maestro at the big-bang afterparty of this youngest scion, whose roka with his longtime belle was just last week at the Shrinathji Temple at Nathdwara, Rajasthan. Move over Beyonce, Kesariya ka dhamaal toh dekho.
Soccer from the Box Seat
Can’t help it, but we are still suffering from a Doha hangover, especially when we figured Indians were ruling the roost off the pitch in football diplomacy. While Elon Musk, the man of year in most polls, was enjoying the Messi vs Mbappe magic with Mansoor Bin Ebrahim Al-Mahmoud, the boss of Qatar Investment Authority, the emir invited his closest buddies to the Qatari royal box. Along with French President Emmanuel Macron, Fifa president Gianni Infantino, Saudi Aramco and Saudi PIF chief Yasir Al Rumayyan as well as the senior Argentinian delegation was Anshuman Mishra, India Inc.’s man in the Gulf, along with his pal Steven Mnuchin, former US treasury secretary and now a fund manager. Soccer and high finance surely are a power-packed punch.
Lore from Lala Land
A new business book — The Good Indian Employee’s Guide to Surviving a Lala Company — by one Rajiv Gupta has created quite a flutter among the business barons we gather. The fifth chapter, with the moniker “Meet Lalaji’s cronies: The Chamchaa,” has sparked sniggers and wrath in equal measure as the ways of sly sycophants have apparently been exposed. We gather reliably that recently a group of patriarchs, all of whom run professional setups, even tried to guess who they think fits the bill the most. Following a nationwide manhunt, they seem to have zoomed in on this old-world industrialist whose business interests — petchem to agri products — are arguably as diverse as his loyalties. From a pharma and infrastructure tycoon in Ahmedabad to a realtor in Mumbai who would rather be a financial services maven to a diversified billionaire with a weakness for French cafes, retail and a good game, he’s one without any strings attached, or so we are told.
Source: https://news.google.com/__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?oc=5
