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NEW DELHI, DEC 30: BK Modi hears a jingle in the holistics business. The man once rode 17 international joint ventures (JVs). His group made more news for its torrid relationships — with Olivetti, Telstra and Xerox, to name a few — than the copiers, PCs and other gizmos these JVs brought in. But at 55, BKM looks philosophical about what’s come and gone. He talks of re-birth and then readily admits that “JVs may’ve been needed to get in the technology, but somewhere we lost our brand.” Modi promises he can now build new businesses around new-age lifestyle: “bed-less” hospitals, “concept” malls, cheaper phone cards and two “open-architecture” holistic centres, one near Delhi and and the other in New Jersey.
Modi’s “re-birth” kit has two cylinders. One is inspired from Warren Buffett. Here, his MCorp Global puts in a minority stake “without having the headache of managing the show.” A shopping mall in Singapore is one such example. So are US-based investments in the software arena.
But the bread and butter are new-age lifestyles.
All businesses hope to seduce the upper middle class global Indian. If there is a focus, it is regional. “Punjabis wherever they are in the world,” as Modi puts in. He feels Pu-njabis are big spe-nders, they just haven’t had the places to spend it. State chief minister Amarinder Singh just signed son Dilip Modi to organise the NRI investment meet in April.
 | | BK Modi | For starters, MCorp Global, a holding company that has subsumed BKM’s complex network of 80 subsidiaries, investment companies and cross-holdings, will host a few dozen politicos and corporate leaders like LM Thapar, Sunil Mittal, Rajiv Chandrasekhar, OP Jindal, HL Somany, OS Kanwar and Harishankar Singhania in the first holistics session beginning Friday.
“My centre will be like a Belvedere Club. Spiritual leaders like Divyanand Teerth, SN Goenka, Chinmayananda, Dayanand Saraswati will host their programmes. These great gurus have found that it isn’t easy to run ashrams. There’s a market for well being where people aren’t willing to slum it out. You give them the facilities and they’ll happily pay. That’s where MCorp comes in. An ex-Oberoi manager will run the facility.”
Trying to untangle from the past, Modi says he doesn’t want to hold on to a business just for old-time’s sake. Even his minority stake in a JV with Xerox “can go either way,” he says.
“No business is forever. If someone gives me 150 for something that was for 100, why should I hold on? On the other hand, I’ll buy if I get the same thing for 50,” he says with a poker-face without naming Xerox. Though both companies don’t comment on it, backroom boys from both teams are working out the future of Modi’s remaining equity holding in the JV.
Modi says MCorp Global has been valued by Ernst & Young at around $250 million. |
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