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By G Seetharaman, ET Bureau | 10 Nov, 2013, 04.30AM IST 19 comments  | Post a Comment

“Once you get into that clique (hanging around with corporate

honchos), all they talk about are numbers and markets and I 

get very bored” Rishad Naoroji.

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Rishad Naoroji: Meet the billionaire whoprefers birdwatching to talking businessstrategy

READ MORE ON » Sunday ET | Rishad Naoroji | real estate | Ludwig van Beethoven | Jim Corbett | Jamshyd Godrej |Godrej Industries

N aoroji's N et Worth ( as of March 2013)

$1.8 billion - Forbes

Organisati ons/ Projec ts Naoroji has been

involved with: Governing Council Member,

Bombay Natural History Society CommitteeMember, The Himalayan Club Director,

Raptor Research and Conservation

Foundation Trustee, New Ornis Foundation

 Adviser, Parsi Vulture Project.

If there were an award for the billionaire

with the most unassuming office, Rishad

Naoroji would certainly be a top contender.

Just outside his office are steel cupboards

and drawers legendary for their longevity

and carrying his mother's maiden name,

also among corporate India's mostrecognisable: Godrej. Naoroji's room

equally belies his wealth, estimated by

Forbes magazine to be $1.8 billion as of March this year. One side of the room is

monopolised by customary pictures of his father Kaikhushru, a trekker, environmentalist

and photographer, who has perhaps been the biggest factor in Naoroji going off the

beaten path. His table is packed with books and not of the management kind most

commonly found in billionaires' offices; they are primarily to do with birds, especially

raptors or birds of prey, his passion for decades.

When ET Magazine meets him at his office, housed at Godrej Bhavan in south Mumbai,

after a telephonic conversation, he is nursing a bad back, the fallout of a five-day trip to

Nagaland where he went to observe efforts to save Amur falcons from being hunted for food. The Amur falcon BSE -4.55 %  is a migratory bird which flies to northeastern India and

Bangladesh from its breeding grounds in parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia,

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before moving to Africa.

His Raptor Research and Conservation Foundation, set up in 2011, has directed "a few

lakh" rupees toward Amur falcon conservation, says the 62-year-old bachelor, who was

also planning to visit the Balpakram National Park on the India-Bangladesh border in

Meghalaya, via Guwahati. But he called off the trip after he heard of United Liberation

Front of Assam (Ulfa) trouble in the region.

"I have some 300 emails to read and also work on a research paper," says Naoroji,whose long face and raised silver hair puts one in mind of American filmmaker David

Lynch, though Naoroji's smile and eyes have an avuncular tinge to them, a far remove

from the coldness of Lynch's.

Naoroji will shortly leave for Rajasthan where he has been collecting data on raptors for 

10 years and plans to do so for another decade before arriving at conclusions. "Raptors

are crucial because their presence tells you about the health of a forest," says Naoroji.

Besides falcons, wellknown raptors include eagles, vultures, hawks and buzzards.

Road Less Travelled

Though Naoroji, a graduate from Mumbai's HR College of Commerce and Economics,tells ET Magazine that working in the family business never caught his fancy, according to

a hagiographic chronicle of the group written by journalist BK Karanjia, he would have

liked to work for the group founded by his maternal granduncle Ardeshir Godrej in 1897

as well as carry on with his interest in birds. But, "the breeding time of raptors is six

months, and it takes more than two months to locate their breeding sites. Reading about

birds, writing about them, and photographing them take a hell of a lot of time. [So] No, I

couldn't possibly combine the two," Karanjia quotes Naoroji as saying in his 1997 book.

Naoroji says his family did not have much of a problem. Adi Godrej, his first cousin and

chairman of Godrej group, agrees: "There was not much discontent in the family. Though

the trend then was for kids to follow in their fathers' footsteps, it was becoming perfectly

appropriate for someone to live off the dividends of their shareholding and pursue their passion. I admire Rishad for what he did."

The Godrejs, along with the Tatas and Wadias, are among the best-known Parsi families

in business, and are also one of the tightest-knit in India Inc which has seen several

groups being torn asunder by intrafamily rivalry. The group started out with locks and

claims to have produced the first soap in the world to be made from vegetable oil in 1920.

It also supplied nine lakh ballot boxes for independent India's first general elections in

1951 and in the subsequent year launched what became one of its biggest brands:

Cinthol soap. It was also known for its typewriters, besides its cupboards and safes. The

group later ventured into other segments and today has a presence in appliances, real

estate, agricultural inputs, retail and information technology.

The group posted revenues of Rs 22,300 crore in 2012-13. Godrej Industries BSE 0.79 %

and Godrej Consumer Products BSE 3.60 %  have made shareholders much richer in the

last decade, with their share prices spiking 31 times and 22 times, respectively, compared

to just over four times for the benchmark Sensex. Godrej Properties, on the other hand,

has seen its share price fall by over a fourth since its listing in January 2010 while the

Sensex has risen less than a fifth.

The group's holding company Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company is not listed.

Some members of the family's next generation, including Adi's daughters Tanya Dubash

and Nisa, and son Pirojsha, and Jamshed's son Navroze, are already involved in various

arms of the group. The Godrej family fortune is equally split between Adi, his brother 

Nadir, Jamshyd and his sister Smita, and Naoroji, and further divvied up between their 

kids.

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NEWEST OLDEST RECOMMENDED (1) MOST DISCUSSED AGREE

Birds that fly or WALK??!!  Agree (0)

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 After making billions, one can afford such fancy hobby. Businessmen and professionals

can enter public life, when they no longer are under pressure to make a living by working.

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Get Corporate Leaders!!  Agree (1)Disagree (0)

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With how much he's earned he can afford to now bird watch  Agree (0)

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Is he related to Dadabhai Naoroji, the freedom fighter?  Agree (0)

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I don't think so...  Agree (0)

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Some people are like that. They sincerely pursue their interest and make the ir life richer.  Agree (1)

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Normally wealth begets wealth. The Rich thinks once they make enough money, they

would relax. But once you reach "there", "enough" eludes them. This is not economics, but

human psychology. There are exceptions to this normal human behaviour and Rishad

Naoroj is one such

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Well put...I concur.  Agree (0)

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Once u hv sufficient money u can follow yr dream that u dreamt in a fairy land. Your 

hobbies can be anything.

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Need to respect him for what he is doing. Greed / competition to

perform better than cousins can always lead the person to rat race.

Salute the guy.

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 Agree to yr statement but I was targeting is the settled self with no

botheration. We all dont hv such a privilege.

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I think it's about the state of mind. With passion and support

(not necessarily monetary), you can possibly pursue anything...

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Good Financial back up then you can pursue your goals for sure.  Agree (3)

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i c  Agree (0)

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made enough  Agree (0)

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so nice of him  Agree (1)

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Great , When will India learn to persue passion and give Dignity to Labour , rather than

Numbers in the Bank Account and Counting Degrees , Fame and Wealth ???

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