UK-based billionaire & Hinduja Group chairman SP Hinduja passes away at 87

“The whole Hinduja family, with a heavy heart, regret to announce the passing away of our family patriarch and Chairman of the Hinduja Group S P Hinduja today,” said a spokesperson of the Hinduja family.

“His loss has left a huge void as the brothers have always been four bodies and one soul. The Hinduja family is in grief and sorrow at his demise,” he said. Hinduja, born in the Sindh province, was unwell for some time. After completing his education in 1952, he joined his father in the family business. Alongside his younger brothers Gopichand, Prakash and Ashok, SP Hinduja was known as the family’s patriarch. Seizing opportunities in a globalised world, he and his brothers scripted and implemented a strategy for the diversified growth of the group, transforming it into an international conglomerate with a footprint across 38 countries and a 150,000-plus-strong team.

He is the main shareholder of the group. He has been consistently ranked among the UK and Asia’s wealthiest people. In 2022, Hinduja topped the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated wealth of 28.472 billion pound sterling. Popularly known as SP, he led the acquisition of Ashok Leyland from British Leyland and Gulf Oil from Chevron in the 1980s and the formation of banks in Switzerland and India in the 1990s.  He became a leading business baron in India alongside names like the Tatas, the Birlas, the Bajajs and the Ambanis. Years of business experience in the free market as well as protected economies across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas has shaped his fundamental belief that a free-market economy can improve understanding between people.

SP conceived the vision of IndusInd Bank – the first of the new-generation private banks in India – and through collective contributions from the NRI community towards India’s economic and social development, brought the bank into being. The Group is the main shareholder of the bank.

He also courted controversies as well. In 1987, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, quoting highly placed company sources in an original report, identified the Hindujas as recipients of the “commission” paid by Bofors in connection with winning the Bofors-India Howitzer contract of March 24, 1986. However, they persistently denied their involvement in the scandal, with one brother claiming that “there is a clear-cut conspiracy to malign the name of the family.”