Chinnakannan Sivasankaran

Chinnakannan Sivasankaran (born 1956, Chennai) is the Chairman of Siva Group (formerly Sterling Infotech),^[1] Siva Industries & Holdings and Siva Ventures. He claims he has a net worth of more than $4 billion, but was declared bankrupt by court. He heralded the PC revolution in India in the 80s, when he launched PCs at one third of the prevailing cost; pioneered the mobile revolution in the 90s; was the first to introduce DSL and Wi-Max broadband technologies in India. He is currently the group chairman of Siva Ventures, which owns 33 companies across a diversified spectrum of industries all over the world including WinWind Oy, STel, JBUS (Shipping Conglomerate), Siva Realty and a number of other companies.^[2]

He is known to keep an extremely low public profile and has rarely given public interviews. He is known to live out of the most expensive presidential suites around the world and owns a large fleet of private planes and yachts.^[3] He is the ambassador-at-large for Seychelles, where he owns a seafront residence.^[4]

On August 26, 2014 the Supreme Court of Seychelles declared him and the Siva Group insolvent following his application for bankruptcy protection to ward off a claim by his Bahrain-based telecom partner Batelco, which won a court decree for its $212 million claim on its investment in S Tel, for which Sivasankaran stood personal guarantee.^[5]

Early life

Sivasankaran was born in 1956 in Chennai, India.^[6] He started his career as a fabrication contractor for MRL (now Chennai Petroleum corporation), a business started by his father.^[7] He shot to fame when he bought Sterling Computers (now Siva Group) from Robert Amritraj, father of the Indian tennis star, Vijay Amritraj, in the 80s and marketing computers at the then cheap cost of 33,000 Rs under the brand name " SIva PC"

Ventures

Sivasankaran, known as Siva in close circles^[8] made it to the Indian newspapers as an innovative emerging businessman. He created a phenomenon in Indian computer hardware market by selling personal computers at a modest price tag of 33,000 in 1980s when computers were sold for as much as 80,000, making him the fourth largest PC manufacturer in India.^[9] He acquired telecom licenses for Delhi,Haryana,Rajasthan,UP (East) and Tamil Nadu in early 1990s and finally in 1997, Aircel was launched as a telephony brand based out of Chennai.

Aircel-Maxis controversy

Sivasankaran hold 74% stake in Aircel, one of India's leading mobile operators. It was acquired by Maxis Communications based on Malaysia in 2006. Later CBI alleged irregularities in acquiring of Aircel by Maxis. CBI charged Dayanithi Maran Ex-Telecom minister had forced Sivasankaran to sell all his stakes to Maxis in 2005. Now the matter is under scanner of CBI & special CBI court is investing the case.

^[10]

Siva Group of Companies

Siva Group of Companies -

• Aiwo (health food chain)
• WinWinD
• S Tel
• Siva Shipping (established 2008 upon the acquisition of the Norwegian company Ugland Shipping)^[11]

References