Newsmaker: Ravi Ruia

Matter of trust

A strategic, calculating decision-maker who chooses to stay in the background. That is how insiders describe 57-year-old Ravi Ruia, vice-chairman of the Essar group.

Observers of the Essar group, whose asset base has grown in recent times after facing some tough problems in the late 1990s, note that while elder brother Shashi Ruia, 63, is the relationship man, Ravi is the one who takes the tough decisions, mostly away from the public eye and without great fanfare.

In fact, while Shashi Ruia is often seen in Delhi meeting people and at industry functions, Ravi, an engineer by training, is known to shy away from publicity.

His low public profile does not mean that he is not clued in "" people who report to him are known to never go unprepared. For it is his nature to ask pointed, probing questions that seek equally sharp answers. In his relationships too, he adopts a similar approach "" never too far and never too close.

So, it is with some surprise that Essar watchers see the recent growing spat with long time partner Hutchison Telecom. The discord, brewing for some time now, threatens to become bigger. While it is in the courts at the moment, the genesis of Essar's apparent decision to aggressively protect its telecom interests lies in what it feels is a "breach of trust".

While the result of this strategy will only be known later, insiders say that it was Ravi, who along with nephew Prashant looks after the day to day businesses with a special focus on telecom, decided that Essar would no longer play a recessive role in the business.

"The entire family decided that the group would not be cowed down in the partnership. There is a certain feeling of distrust that crept in, on both sides. But, for Essar and Ravi, the breaking point came as they felt that Hutch had let them down by indirectly selling equity in their partnership to Egypt's' Orascom. The personal chemistry between the uncle and nephew is also responsible for the recent uptrend in the group's fortunes," says a family insider in the know.

Insiders are careful to emphasise that the brothers stick together "" and in the face of adversity, always. Visitors to their office recount the way the two brothers sit "" facing each other in one huge room, without any partition, and thus able to maintain eye contact with each other at all times.

This partition-free philosophy at the workplace reflects in other parts of their business and family life. At the 60th birthday celebrations for his elder brother, Ravi told the gathering that while Essar for most people stands for "Shashi and Ravi", in his view, it stood for Shashi Ruia alone.

It is this sense of fraternal bonding that impresses Essar employees the most.