Lord Swraj Paul leaves behind legacy in entrepreneurship, philanthropy

From the bylanes of Jalandhar to a regular name in the annual 'Sunday Times Rich List', Lord Swraj Paul, who died on Thursday evening in London aged 94, was among the best known NRI entrepreneurs and philanthropists.

Born to Pyare Lal, who ran a small foundry used to make steel goods, including buckets and other farming equipment, Lord Paul was exposed to business early in his life, long before he went on to establish the UK-based Caparo Group, a diversified business entity with interests predominantly in the design, manufacture, marketing and distribution of value-added steel and niche engineering products.

Born on 18 February 1931, he completed high school education at Jalandhar and Bachelors in Science from Punjab University in 1949. Then he went to the US to pursue his bachelors and masters degrees in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

After completing his studies at MIT, he returned to India to join the family business Apeejay Surrendra Group — one of India's oldest business conglomerates.

But as fate would have it, he relocated to the UK in 1966 in pursuit of treatment for his daughter Ambika, who was suffering from leukaemia. Unfortunately, she died aged four.

Later, he set up the Ambika Paul Foundation as a charitable trust that went on to donate millions to promote the wellbeing of children and young people all over the world through education and health initiatives. The Ambika Paul Children's Zoo in London is one of the major beneficiaries of the foundation.

Lord Paul laid the foundation to set up Caparo in 1968 with headquarters in London and it went on to become one of the largest steel conversion and distribution businesses in the UK.

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Today, Caparo, which has a turnover of over USD 1 billion, is managed by his three children — Ambar, Akash and Anjli Paul — and operates internationally from over 40 sites, serving customers globally, primarily from operations based in the UK, North America, India, and the Middle East.

While he was blessed with success in business, his life had a fair share of tragedies. Besides the loss of daughter Ambika at a very young age, he lost his son and Caparo Group CEO Angad Paul in 2015 and his wife Aruna in 2022.

The personal losses drove him to undertake more philanthropic endeavours in their memory. After the death of his wife, the Ambika Paul Foundation was renamed the Aruna and Ambika Paul Foundation to honour her memory and recognise her contributions to the many causes which the foundation supported during her lifetime.

He founded the Indo-British Association in 1975 to promote better understanding between India and Britain and served as its chairman. He was knighted by the British Queen in 1978 and became Lord Paul of Marylebone and a member of the House of Lords. He was sworn as a Privy Councilor in October 2009.

House of Lords peer Lord Paul was conferred the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India in 1983.

In the Indian business landscape, the late Lord Paul is also remembered for his hostile bids to take over Escorts Group and the DCM Group in the early 1980s, which required the intervention of then government after legal battles.

He was a regular in the annual 'Sunday Times Rich List', ranked 81st this year with an estimated wealth of GBP 2 billion, largely derived from the Caparo Group.

Despite his frailty in recent months, he maintained his routine of attending the House of Lords. An active member of the Indian diaspora in the UK, his death leaves a void hard to fill.