In our article titled “Dilip Shanghvi 101: Who is the Successful Billionaire Businessman?”, we will discuss everything you need to know in detail about Dilip Shanghvi, the successful billionaire businessman, as readers are curious about him on Zatrun.com.
Who is Dilip Shanghvi?
Dilip Shanghvi is a billionaire businessman born on October 1, 1955, and is one of the richest people in India. He founded Sun Pharmaceuticals. The Indian government awarded him the Padma Shri civilian honor in 2016. India Today magazine ranked him eighth on the list of India’s most powerful people in 2017. According to Forbes, as of October 2021, Shanghvi is the 14th richest person in India with a net worth of $14.3 billion. He is married to Vibha Shanghvi, and they have two children, Aalok and Vidhi, who work for Sun Pharmaceuticals.
Dilip Shanghvi comes from a Jain family based in Kolkata. He was born as the son of Shantilal Shanghvi and his wife Kumud Shanghvi in the town of Amreli in the state of Gujarat. Shanghvi received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calcutta. He spent his childhood and university life in the Burrabazar area of Kolkata with his parents. He completed his schooling and undergraduate studies at J. J. Ajmera High School and Bhawanipur Education Society College, respectively.
Career Life and Works
Shanghvi began his business career by assisting a wholesale pharmaceutical trading company in Kolkata. While working in this job, he came up with the idea of producing his own drugs instead of selling products produced by others. In 1982, at the age of 27, Shanghvi opened Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, his first production facility located in Vapi, Gujarat, just a short drive from Mumbai, with a capital of INR 10,000. The facility produced only one psychiatric drug. However, thanks to Shanghvi’s intelligence and energy, the business quickly grew, and by 1997, Sun Pharma was able to even acquire the American company Caraco Pharma.
In 2007, Sun also acquired Israel’s Taro Pharma. Shanghvi stepped down as CEO and chairman in 2012, and appointed Israel Makov, the former CEO of Teva Pharmaceuticals, as his successor. Shanghvi continued to serve as executive director. In April 2014, Sun reached an agreement with Ranbaxy and Daiichi Sankyo (Ranbaxy’s majority shareholder), deciding that Sun would acquire all of Ranbaxy’s shares with Sun’s shares worth $3.2 billion and take over Ranbaxy’s $800 million debt; the deal was completed in March 2015, making Sun the largest pharmaceutical company in India and the fifth largest in the world.
Additionally, Daiichi Sankyo became Sun’s second largest shareholder. In May 2021, Shanghvi stepped down from his position as executive director of SPARC, and will continue to serve as non-executive director and chairman. In January 2018, the Indian government appointed Shanghvi to the central board of the Reserve Bank of India’s 21-member committee. Shanghvi is the chairman of the governing council of IIT Bombay. His appointment as a trustee of the Rhodes scholarship program at Oxford University took place in 2017.
Book
In 2019, journalist Soma Das wrote “The Reluctant Billionaire,” the first and only biography of Dilip Shanghvi. The book was published by Penguin Random House and was nominated for Best Business Book at the Tata Literature Awards in November 2019.
