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Man with the Midas touch

Sanjay Vora in Bombay

The world knows Bharat Shah as the flashy financier of many Bollywood movies. However, his business associates estimate that less than 10 per cent of Shah's money is invested in Hindi films. But, even that was enough to make him the unrivalled benefactor of the Hindi film industry.

Things took a turn for the worse when Bharat Shantilal Shah was arrested by the Bombay police on Monday for alleged links with the underworld.

After spending a night in the lock-up at the Bombay police's Crawford Market headquarters, he was admitted to the J J Hospital on Tuesday after complaining of chest pain.

The police's claim about his links with the underworld is based on audio cassettes, which reportedly contain conversations between Shah and fugitive gangster Chhota Shakeel about extortion and the hawala racket.

Till now, the man who helped many Hindi film producers realise their dreams led a quiet life, dealing in diamonds, before his current fall from grace.

Shah is among the biggest diamond exporters, and his company, B Vijaykumar & Co, (popularly known as B Vijay) is a multinational, but without much pomp or overheads.

His brother Vijay needs no introduction in Belgium, the United States of America, Thailand and Israel.

The brothers own one of the most modern diamond-cutting factories in Thailand, measuring 40,000 square feet and set up at a cost of $ 5 million. The factory employs 1,200 cutters and produces diamonds worth $ 100 million annually.

They own two factories in Belgium and another one in Israel. Vijay speaks Hebrew fluently and in 1981, his company bagged a major export award in Israel.

When Vijay was awarded the Knight of The Order of Leopold by the king of Belgium, the brothers took along friends and many diamond merchants from Bombay on a chartered flight to celebrate the occasion.

In western India, they own factories in Bombay, Surat and Palanpur, their home town, and employ around 25,000 workers. These factories polish diamonds worth Rs 5 billion annually.

Bharat Shah's ultra-modern jewellery factory at SEEPZ, Bombay, designed by a Belgian architect, produces jewellery worth Rs 7 billion annually. He is said to have a stake in the Pipavav port on the Gujarat coast.

The brothers's hold over the international diamond trade is so complete that De Beers, which enjoys a monopoly in the supply of uncut diamonds, serves vegetarian food to the Shahs when they hold meetings in London.

Obviously, the Shahs are among their most valued customers.

Since the diamond trade is labour-oriented and non-polluting, many South Asian countries invite diamond-based businesses. Like Nepal, at whose instance Bharat Shah set up a Rs 3 million diamond-cutting factory in Kathmandu.

But he is as hard-nosed a businessman as any. When the authorities refused to cut import duties on rough diamonds, he almost gifted away the factory to the Nepal government.

Contrary to the latest management mantra of focusing on core competence, Bharat Shah dabbles in many businesses, and successfully at that.

While his interest in financing films is well known, what is not known is his intention to set up a factory to manufacture car batteries and enter the ship breaking business.

He is said to have a major stake in the B4U television channel and srkworld.com which was set up by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

When he allowed director Sanjay (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam) Bhansali to spend Rs 30 million on erecting just one set to shoot his latest project, Devdas it became news, but what is not news is that Bharatbhai routinely spends Rs 4,000 to Rs 10,000 on a single shirt.

He gifted his son Rajeev a Sera when the latter turned 18. Shah Jr, incidentally, has one of the largest collections of Hindi film songs. In December 1989, when his daughter Reshma got married, he had a Rajasthani palace built at Bombay's Wankhede stadium. It looked so real that Shashi Kapoor later used it to shoot Ajooba.

However, for all his success, overseas clients are surprised when they meet him at his non-descript office at Charni Road, south Bombay.

The Bombay Stock Exchange may have been shaken by his arrest, but his friends vouch for Shah's self-confidence. It's unbreakable, they say.

And their claim will be put to the test in the days to come.

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