Gulu Lalvani

Gulu Lalvani
Nationality	Indian

Gulu Lalvani is a British Asian businessman, known for being the founder and chairman of Binatone, a manufacturer of digital cordless phones.

Gulu Lalvani, a famous Jain, was originally from Pakistan but he, like other Jains, emigrated from Pakistan. He originates from Karachi (modern Pakistan)^[1] and was raised in Bombay. Lalvani came to Britain as a student. He founded Binatone in 1958 with his brothers Kartar Singh Lalvani and Partap Singh Lalvani to import radios from Hong Kong. In 1989, Partap and he divided the business geographically and both brothers now own their own Binatone groups operating in different parts of the world, whilst Kartar Lalvani has founded Vitabiotics that is today run by him and his son Tej. Today Binatone International Limited is one of the largest privately owned consumer electronics companies in UK. It enjoys nearly 15% market share in the domestic telephone sector in UK.

Other assets include the £32m Royal Phuket Marina of which only the first phase has been completed. He featured in the article of Millionaire Asia. He was often an annoyance to Alan Sugar: "Gulu had this pathological obsession with me and wanted to try and scupper whatever I was involved in."^[2] He became a vegan after watching the documentary Eating^[3] by Mike Anderson, and convinced Steve Wynn to do the same.^[4]

In Lord Sugar's autobiography Sugarboy says that Gulu used to sell radio receivers to him.

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