Dilip Shanghvi (born 1 October 1955) is an Indian billionaire businessman and one of the country's richest people. He founded Sun Pharmaceuticals. The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 2016. India Today magazine ranked him 8th in India's most powerful people of 2017 list. According to Forbes, as of October 2023, Shanghvi is the 6th richest person in India with a net worth of US$18.7 billion.

Early life

Shanghvi hails from a Gujarati Hindu Vaishnav Kapol Vania family settled in Kolkata. He was born in the small town of Amreli in the Indian state of Gujarat, the son of Shantilal Shanghvi and his wife Kumud Shanghvi. Shanghvi earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calcutta. He spent his childhood and college life with his parents in the Burrabazar locality of Kolkata. He is an alumnus of J. J. Ajmera High School and Bhawanipur Education Society College, where he did his schooling and graduation, respectively.

Career

Shanghvi started by helping his father in his business, which was a wholesale dealership of medicines, mainly generic drugs, in Kolkata. It was during this work that he thought of manufacturing his own drugs instead of selling products made by others.

In 1982, the 27-year-old Shanghvi finally opened his first manufacturing unit with a capital of INR 10,000. He named his venture Sun Pharmaceutical Industries. The unit, located in Vapi in his native state of Gujarat, a short drive away from Mumbai, produced exactly one psychiatry drug. However, the business soon picked up, thanks to Shanghvi's acumen and energy, and by 1997, Sun Pharma was even able to acquire Caraco Pharma, an American company. Sun also acquired Israel's Taro Pharma in 2007. Shanghvi stepped down as chairman and CEO in 2012 and chose Israel Makov, formerly CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals, as his successor;[citation needed] Shanghvi became managing director. In April 2014 Sun, Ranbaxy, and Daiichi Sankyo (the majority shareholder in Ranbaxy) agreed that Sun would acquire all outstanding shares of Ranbaxy for $3.2 billion in Sun stock and that Sun would take on $800M in Ranbaxy debt; the deal closed in March 2015 and made Sun the largest drug company in India and fifth largest in the world, and made Daiichi the second-largest shareholder in Sun. In May 2021 he stepped down from the position of Managing director of SPARC and will continue to function as a non-executive director and chairman.

Community

In January 2018, the Indian government appointed Shanghvi to the Reserve Bank of India's 21-member central board committee. He is chairman of the board of governors at IIT Bombay. He was made a trustee of the Rhodes scholarship programme at Oxford University in 2017.

Personal life

He is married to Vibha Shanghvi. They have a son, Aalok and a daughter, Vidhi, both of whom work for Sun Pharmaceuticals.

Shanghvi is a devotee of Shrinathji and makes regular pilgrimage with his family to the deity's abode in the city of Nathdwara in Rajasthan. Photos and idols of the deity adore Sun Pharma's factory and offices.

Book

In 2019, journalist Soma Das authored The Reluctant Billionaire, the first and only biography of Dilip Shanghvi. Published by Penguin Random House, the book was nominated for Tata Literature Award in the Best Business Book category in November 2019.

Controversies

Reaction to Maggie Ban

Dilip Shanghvi, managing director of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, criticised the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for banning Nestle's well-known noodle brand Maggi as an unnecessary controversy brought on by arbitrary interpretation of the law. In reference to Nestle's loss as a result of the country's food regulator's ban on its well-known noodle brand, Shanghvi remarked that India should have encouraged industry to offer enormous benefits to society rather than scaring away investment from the company.

Insider Trading Allegations

Following several accusations of bad governance and insider trading, the stock of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries fell to a six-month low. Last Tuesday, a statement from Australian brokerage company Macquarie went viral on social media, causing a stir within the financial community. The message, titled Murky Waters of Sun Pharma, was extensively shared on WhatsApp. This sparked questions about the corporation's corporate governance processes, which the company has categorically refuted.

Inadequate disclosures regarding the involvement of promoter Dilip Shanghvi's brother-in-law Sudhir Valia, Sun's previous connections to illegal traders Ketan Parekh and Dharmesh Doshi, related party transactions involving promoter Shanghvi, and guarantees made to real estate firm Suraksha Realty were all raised in the note.

However, the corporation refuted all of the claims and claimed that the information that was already in the public domain had been presented in a way that suggested the company had engaged in improper behaviour.

Facts

• He grew up in the Burrabazar locality of Calcutta.
• Initially, he used to provide a helping hand to his father in his wholesale generic drugs business. Eventually, Dilip Shanghvi decided to start his own company and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries was founded in 1982 with a capital of INR 10,000.
• He received the civilian honor of Padma Shri in 2016.
• In 2017, he was appointed as a trustee of the Rhodes scholarship program at Oxford University.
• Dilip Shanghvi became a member of the Reserve Bank of India’s 21-member central board committee in January 2018.
• He was placed on the 8th spot in the “India’s Most Powerful People of 2017” list curated by India Today magazine.
• As of October 2019, he was the 12th richest person in India with a net worth of US$6.9 billion as reported by Forbes.
• Dilip Shanghvi’s biography titled “The Reluctant Billionaire” by journalist Soma Das was released in 2019 and the book was nominated for a Tata Literature Award in the “Best Business Book” category in November 2019.
• Shrinathji is Dilip Shanghvi’s family deity and they gracefully sit at the Sun’s factories and offices.