Vinay Maloo

Vinay Maloo (born 10 January 1961) is an Indian businessman, who is the founder and chairman of Enso Group, a diversified group based in Mumbai, India. Maloo founded the group in 2005. They moved their headquarters to London, United Kingdom for a brief period in early 2010s.

Vinay Maloo completed his high school from National High School in Kolkata (then Calcutta). He is an alumnus of St. Xavier's Collegewhere he studied for his bachelor of commerce degree, and graduated with honours, in 1981. St.Xavier's is a part of University of Calcutta. He went onto pursue chartered accountancy from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) but left it midway to start his own business.

Vinay Maloo started his business career with marble mining in Kankroli, Rajasthan. He left Kolkata for Delhi in 1990 to run Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited (HFCL) with his uncle Mahendra Nahata, as they had set up their first telecom equipments manufacturing plant in Solan, Himachal Pradesh in 1988.

HFCL

They were the first private sector company to enter telecom equipments manufacturing in India. In HFCL, they set up manufacturing facilities in India for optical fiber cables, optical transport, power electronics and broadband equipment for global supply, and provided turnkey solutions to the Government of India's undertakings and private sector players across the world. HFCL has an in-house R&D department, developing new technologies. Their $25 billion (₹ 850 billion) bid for basic services license in India created the momentum for telecom in the country. Late Australian businessman Kerry Packer, also known for his contribution to the sport of cricket, invested in HFCL, in the year 2000, picking up 10% stake.

During technology boom, HFCL peaked at an approximately $4 billion market cap making him one of the top 10 richest Indians at age 39. In 2005, the partners split, Nahata keeping the telecom business as Maloo wanted to expand into different sectors and be diversified. In 2006, he resigned from HFCL.

Controversy

In 2001, HFCL, under Vinay Maloo, came under scrutiny for stock market irregularities but was exonerated by a Joint Parliamentary Committee(JPC) which examined the issue. In 2010, the company and SEBI finally settled the court matter, which followed JPCs remarks, with HFCL paying ₹10 crores through consent order.

Enso Group is a growing $7 billion conglomerate which is privately held for most part. It started with oil & gas as primary focus, in 2005, but has made slow and steady progress in few other industries besides energy. The group has expanded horizontally with purchasing controlling stake in operations of a potash mining project in Canada , and have a gas block in Siberian region of Russia. The group sold its stake in Ensearch Petroleum, which had its holdings in 14 oil and gas blocks to Sahara India Pariwar in 2011. Ensearch had oil & gas E&P blocks in Australia, Georgia, Nigeria, Jordan, and Gujarat in India.

A PPP initiative of Enso Healthcare Limited, Enso Care, was launched with GE-Wipro and Government of Maharashtra& another one in Punjab with Philips but the group exited before rollout and curbed it's healthcare expansion plans. They also have interest in solar power innovation, having a modest portfolio of products and capacity to execute turnkey projects.

Vinay Maloo is a Jain, vegetarian by birth. His wife Vineeta is an economics graduate from Sophia College for Women, University of Mumbai and they met through common family connections. She is a co-founder of their group foundation. They have two children.