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British-Indian Curry King sells company

            London: 'Curry King' Kirit Pathak has sold his company to Associated British Foods at a price of #200 million. Pathak family's firm supplies curry to 75 per cent of Britain 's Indian restaurants, and is a classical rags-to-riches story, evolving since 1955. According to the Daily Mail, Kirit Pathak, 54, the Chairman and CEO of the firm before its sale, will receive a majority of the money from the sale. According to The Telegraph, Kirit Pathak received about 110 million pounds, but provided he stays on to run the business for another five years. He will pick up a further 90 million pounds if he hits all his targets, according to city sources. This would make him one of the country's richest Asians. Under the terms of yesterday's sale, the Pathak family will remain involved in the business. Kirit will become chairman of Associated British Foods' combined world foods group, while his wife Meena will be a director. Patak's success has mirrored the booming appetite for curry in Britain, and the company provides four out of five of the country's curry houses with sauces and mixed spices. But its main business is selling ready meals to the likes of Tesco.

          Last year it achieved a turnover of nearly 70 million pounds. Pathak, who spends his spare time meditating and listening to country and western music, said he had no plans to spend the windfall. "I am afraid it is business as usual. We've got a job to do. I am sure there will be time to reminisce later on," he said. The two members of the family who will not benefit, will be Kirit's sisters -- Chitralekha Mehta, 59, and Anila Shastri, 55, who took their brother to the High Court three years ago, demanding a share in the business. They claimed that their father, Laxmishankar Pathak, who died in 1997, gave them shares worth five per cent of the company in 1974. They said that in 1989 they gave the shares to their mother for safe keeping. She in turn handed them over to Kirit, who, the court heard, refused to give them back. The sisters claimed they were victims of a Hindu culture in which business assets always go to the sons of the family. Despite Kirit's claims that his sisters were 'gold-digging', the sisters won an eight million pound settlement last year from the High Court. But had they hung on to their original stake, they would have netted some 10 million pounds between them. Patak's was established in 1957 after a two-year struggle by founder Laxmishankar Pathak and his wife Shantagauray to survive in England. Laxmishankar was offered the job of a street sweeper when he arrived in the country in 1955. He, however, decided to make samosas and sweets in his 5ft x 6ft London kitchen - and the business, called Patak's, took off from there. The 'h' was dropped from its founder's name to make it easier for British people to pronounce.

          Patak's, established in 1957, was one of the first Indian kitchens in Britain and 100 per cent owned by the family. The business quickly expanded as Pathak bought a shop behind Euston Station and then another in Bayswater, West London. Over the next 50 years, the company blossomed to supply most of Britain's 7,500 Indian restaurants with curry sauces, chutneys and pastes. Patak's now employs 650 staff, mainly at a state-of-the-art factory in Leigh, near Wigan. It operates in more than 45 countries, producing its own products as well as supermarkets' ownbrand products. The Pathaks came to Britain with thousands of other Kenyan Asians to escape the Mau Mau revolt, which left 20,000 people dead as Kenyans rebelled against British colonial rule. The uprising triggered the first of many waves of immigration to Britain by ethnic Asians from Africa, most of whom held British passports. East African Asians are generally considered to have been one of Britain's most successful immigrant communities.
- May 30, 2007