Satyanarayan Nuwal built $ 1bn business by blowing up things
It took him 36 years to buils Solar Group into a billion dollar business.
Satyanarayan Nuwal became a billionaire after blowing up most of the businesses, except one. He started Solar, when he was 43years old, 25years after he started his entrepreneurial journey. Today Solar Industries is worth $1.4bn (about INR 10,000cr).
Business journalist Megha Bharee writes: A native of a village in India’s western state of Rajasthan, Nuwal dropped out of school after 10th grade. He set up his first business to make ink in 1970 at age 18. It failed and he spent the next several years trying his hand at different ventures, including a leasing business and a transport company. All failed. In the late 1970s he moved to Maharashtra state in western India to work with a relative, sleeping in a railway station because he couldn’t afford an apartment.
Before he started his successful venture in 1995, he had been working as a trader for about 12 years.Solar manufactures explosives for Indian industries such as mining (Coal India), construction, and defence. He set up his first plant in 1995. Solar listed on Bombay Stock Exchange in 2006. Today it has 51 manufacturing plants. It featured in ‘Asia’s Best 200 Under a Billion’. Its revenue for September quarter 2019 was INR 500cr.
Satyanarayan points towards Indian defence expenditure, which is worth $ 66.5bn . Only nine state companies manufacture manufacture defence products in India. He has shown that private businesses can produce world class defence products.
