Ajay Piramal Wiki, Age, Wife, Family, Caste, Biography, Net Worth & More

Ajay Piramal or Ajay Gopikrishna Piramal is a reputed Indian businessman and owner of the ‘Piramal Group,’ a textile centric business. Apart from Piramal Group, he has several other well-established businesses like pharmaceuticals, real estate and financial services etc. Check out Ajay Piramal wiki, height, weight, age, wife, family, biography, facts & more.

Biography/Wiki

Born on 3 August 1955, Ajay is a 68 years old business tycoon belongs to Bagar town in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. His upbringing is from Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Ajay’s family name was ‘Makhariya,’ but later, his father Gopikrishna Piramal used his grandfather’s name ‘Piramal’ as his surname, and then, it is continued for the further generations.

Initially, his grandfather, Seth Piramal Chaturbhuj Makharia had a cotton business, who later, in 1920, after getting India’s oldest, and first registered cotton mill ‘Morarjee Mills,’ established the Piramal business empire.

During the 1920s, Seth Piramal Chaturbhuj earned a lot of fame through his philanthropic works for the development of Bagar.

Ajay has completed his B.Sc. (Hons.) from the Jai Hind College, Mumbai, and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai. Then, he went to the United State of America to do the Advanced Management Programme (AMP) from the Harvard Business School, in Boston, USA.

His ‘Piramal Group’ has 4 key companies: Piramal Glass, Piramal Realty, Piramal Enterprises Ltd, and Piramal Foundation.

For his milestone entrepreneur efforts in the business sector, he won several awards such as ‘CEO of the Year’ (1999) by World Strategy Forum, ‘Rotary International (District 3140) Certificate of Appreciation and ‘Four-Way Test Award’ (2001), ‘Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year’ (2004) in the Healthcare & Life Sciences category,  ‘Global Leaders of Tomorrow’ (2004) by the World Economic Forum,

‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ (2006) of UK Trade & Investment Council, ‘India Innovator of the Year’ (2008) by CNBC TV18, ‘Kriyasheel Global Achievers’ (2010),  ‘Distinguished Family of the Year’ (2014) by Forbes Philanthropy, ‘Corporate Citizen of the Year’ (2016) by AIMA Managing India, and ‘Asia Business Leader of the Year’ (2017).

He was also conferred with a Doctorate Degree in Philosophy (D. Phil) by Amity University in 2014. 

Physical Appearance

Ajay is a healthy person with 6’ 1” height and 90 kg weight. 

Family, Caste & Girlfriend

He belongs to a Hindu Marwari textile business family, where his father Gopikrishna Piramal is a businessman, and mother Lalita Piramal is a housewife. His elder brother Ashok Piramal who was a businessman died in 1984. His second elder brother Dilip Piramal is the chairman of ‘VIP Industries.

During his MBA course, he fell in love with a doctor Swati Piramal, and before completing the course, in 1976, he got married to her. He has a son Anand Piramal, the Executive Director of the Piramal Group, and one daughter Nandini Piramal. manager of the Piramal Group’s human resource department.

Career

At the age of 22, he took the responsibility of his father’s businesses of textiles and cutting tools. He used to run this business with the co-operation of his brothers Dilip and Ashok. But, after the two years of his father’s death in 1979, his brother Dilip started ‘VIP Industries’ and ‘Blowplast’ company, the separate businesses in 1982-83.

In 1984, when his second elder brother Ashok died of cancer, he was appointed the chairman of ‘Piramal Enterprises,’ and the chairman as well as managing director of the ‘Morarjee Mills.’ Then, in 1982, he invested in the ‘Gujarat Glass’ industry which proved profitable for him.

In 1988, he purchased a pharma company- ‘Nicholas Laboratories,’ for ₹16 crore, and converted it into ‘Nicholas Piramal.’ Although, he had no much knowledge about the healthcare industries of that time, yet with the co-operation of his workers, and the strategies like overtime work, competitive prices, and indigenously-made drugs, his industry, within a short period of time, gave a strong competition to the pharma companies- GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.

In 1993, he purchased a healthcare company ‘Roche Products’ for ₹20 crore and separated the pharma and real estate businesses. In the same year, he also established ‘Crossroads,’ one of the first shopping malls of India.

In 1996, after getting a commission from the pharma company- ‘Boehringer Mannheim,’ he took over it. In 1976, after his joint venture with the ‘Reckitt & Colman,’ a consumer goods company, he raised a strong sales team.

In 2000, he acquired ‘Rhône-Poulenc’ company for ₹236 crore, which was one of his biggest acquisitions of that time.

In 2005, he invested ₹180 crore on a commercial real estate investment company ‘The Glass Group’ that had a purchasing price of ₹84 crore.

In 2009, he expanded his business by purchasing a pharma company of interventional pain management category, named ‘Minrad,’ for ₹188 crore. In the same year, he established a non-profit organization called ‘Piramal Foundation’ to provide education, healthcare, livelihood, and youth empowerment to the minority group of Indians. This foundation also won the ‘Corporate Trailblazer’ award by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, instituted by the India Today Group.

In 2010, he sold his domestic formulations business to Abbott Labs for $3.8 billion. In 2017, he started a housing finance business with the Piramal Finance Limited (PFL).

Facts

• Ajay likes the personalities- Bill Gates, Jamsetji Tata, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and Swami Vivekananda.

• He is a fan of the artists V.S. Gaitonde, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza and F.N. Souza.

• In his free time, he plays the game Polo.

• ‘Bhagavad Gita’ is his all times favourite book.

• He loves horses since his childhood and used to play polo in his younger days.

  Ajay Piramal, A Horse Lover

• Ajay’s hobbies are reading, writing, wildlife photography and collecting art objects.

• He is fond of different types of ties that he purchases from the ‘Leonard’ cloth house in Paris.

• In 2018, he engaged his son Anand to Isha Ambani, the daughter of a famous business tycoon Mukesh Ambani.

  The Piramals’ Family And The Ambanis’ Family On The Occasion of Isha And Anand’s Engagement Ceremony

• According to some sources, his net worth (as in 2018) is $4.6 billion.