"After the BPL deal, I was clear that what I wanted to do was in a lot of ways what I had earlier done-which is to build franchisees and ventures"

It has been just around six months since Rajeev Chandrasekhar sold his telecom company, BPL Communications, netting a cool Rs 1,300 crore. In that period he has acquired a fiery red Lamborghini that can now give company to the BMW and Ferrari he has in his stable (he also owns two big bikes, including a Harley-Davidson Ultra Electra Glide and a Honda Gold Wing). He has smoked the peace pipe with father-in-law T.P.G. Nambiar, who alleged that the telecom businesses were his and were taken over deceitfully by Chandrasekhar. He has lost weight, lots of it, 17 kg, he tells this writer proudly. And he has figured out what to do with his time and money.

This, the man says, is "Phase III" of his life. Phase I was when the son of an airforce officer from Kerala, graduated from the Manipal Institute of Technology, and lived the great Indian engineering dream by heading off to the us for a Master's in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and a job with chip major Intel. Phase II was when he met fellow Indian and daughter of BPL founder T.P.G. Nambiar, Anju, married her and returned to India, going to work with his wife's 'family' and eventually heading the group's cellular telephony businesses, a business BPL had entered at his insistence and thanks, he has admitted in the past, to his contacts (the late Rajesh Pilot, who had trained under Chandrasekhar's father in the airforce, was India's telecommunications minister then, and when he met the back-in-India and eager-to-get-ahead Chandrasekhar, he suggested that BPL try and bid for some of the cellular licences that the government was auctioning off). Phase II was also when, much like Murphy predicted, everything that could go wrong did go wrong-failed mergers, irate shareholders taking Chandrasekhar to court, futile attempts to exit the business, and, finally, a bitter family spat with father-in-law Nambiar-and most people were busy writing off Rajeev Chandrasekhar. "Phase III," they are likely to have scoffed if told of such a thing then. "What Phase III?" "It's over for Rajeev."

Jupiter Capital is the name Phase III goes by in Chandrasekhar's book. It is the name of the company that will serve as the parent, or holding firm, for all the new businesses the man proposes to enter. "After the BPL deal, I was clear that what I wanted to do was in a lot of ways what I had earlier done-which is to build franchisees and ventures," says Chandrasekhar, speaking for the first time to the media after he sold BPL Communications to the Essar Group (which, in turn, merged it with Hutchison-Essar). "Jupiter Capital, the way I see it, is a venture development management and investment company."

The venture bit is only apt; Chandrasekhar was considering turning a venture capitalist with the proceeds of the sale of BPL Communications; and Jupiter will function, in part, as a venture capital firm, identifying new opportunities in a variety of areas. "We want to develop these opportunities into real businesses and simultaneously bring in capital and management," explains Chandrasekhar. "We are neither the classic VC nor are we the classic promoter. We are really trying to build something in between."

The Three Moons Of Jupiter

It's hard to find fault with Chandrasekhar's choice of focus areas, infrastructure and real estate, leisure, and technology. Some are already the next big things in the Indian business environment; others are certainly businesses that can be that in the future. The infrastructure business promises to be regulations-heavy and capital-intensive, but Chandrasekhar has the money and has made a go of another regulations-heavy business, telecom (and the scope for raising debt in the infrastructure domain is, again, almost limitless, and Chandrasekhar knows a thing or two about doing that). Technology, as an area of interest, is easy to understand given Chandrasekhar's credentials of having worked with Intel (that should count for something); in the technology business Rs 1,300 crore, even a tenth of that, is a lot of money. And the connection with leisure (which has, until now, taken the form of an investment in a fm radio licence) comes from his own interest in music as much as the fact that under the new norms under which fm licences have been issued in India, companies stand a greater chance of making money than they did in the past. After six months of contemplation, Chandrasekhar has returned to basics.

AT PEACE WITH T.P.G.

In late 2004, T.P.G. Nambiar (right) approached the company Law Board alleging that Rajeev Chandrasekhar has taken control of the telecom companies of the group deceitfully, without bringing in commensurate equity capital. Even then, Chandrasekhar said that he'd wished the matter had been settled within the family. Sure enough, around the time he was hammering out a deal with Essar over the sale of BPL Communication, he seems to have arrived at a settlement with Nambiar. That also allows Chandrasekhar to do what he wants to with his part of the proceeds of the sale, without worrying about the possibility of someone laying claim to part of that amount at some future date.

The infrastructure business, where Chandrasekhar has just launched a company, Hindustan Infrastructure with an equity base of Rs 400 crore-the equity base of every investor's favourite infrastructure company, IVRCL, is Rs 21.38 crore-will probably take up a lot of his time (and money) right now. "For the first time, there have been a set of policies and laws in the sector that allow for a meaningful private-public partnership," he says. "Infrastructure and real estate are not easy sectors, (but) they are less risky than they were in 1994." He quickly adds that they are far from "risk-free".

A few weeks ago, when India's Railway Minister, the irrepressible Lalu Prasad Yadav, announced that the government would soon allow private companies to operate in the container transportation space, Jupiter was among the first companies to signal its intent to enter the business. One reason for this is Chandrasekhar's bullishness; he has spent the past six months understanding the infrastructure business, speaking to friends, acquaintances, even others about it. Not too long ago, he was dining with a businessman when the two got around to talking about the economy, its prospects (good, it turned out), and the consequent impact on the movement of goods. "When an economy grows at the rate of X per cent, the movement of goods grows at 3X per cent," explains Chandrasekhar. Predictably, while Hindustan Infrastructure will focus on infrastructure at large, "transportation will remain its focus in the short-term."

There can be no doubting the potential of the infrastructure sector. Luis Miranda, President & CEO, IDFC, believes the opportunity is huge. "Just look at sectors such as roads, ports, and power," he gushes.

Chandrasekhar is equally excited about the leisure business (he will only get into those businesses that excite him). He is passionate about music (blues and rock in particular, the kind of music that anyone who has been to one of India's better engineering colleges will swear by). His fm company Radio Indigo has won the licence to provide fm services in Bangalore. "It was music that led me to fm," says Chandrasekhar, adding that the station will not become the private music player of "Rajeev". For those who came in late, Radio Indigo was promoted by BPL Innovision (a Chandrasekhar baby) in 2000, and won licences to offer fm services in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, among others. However, Chandrasekhar didn't sign the licence agreement and the project never took off.

The Bangalore licence will, if all goes well, be followed by others, related ventures (into things like internet radio and podcasting), even ventures into other aspects of the media business. The internet, adds Chandrasekhar, "looks interesting", although he refuses to comment on jumping to Net 2.0, as everyone has started referring to second-generation internet companies (that are just starting to sprout all over the world), which have very clear revenue and profit models.

Twelve months from now, the fm station will be up, as will the transportation business. Then, there is the third strand, information technology. Chandrasekhar has looked at the BPO (business process outsourcing) business and walked away. "It (BPO) is a great area, but doesn't fire my imagination," he says. "We are looking at technology businesses of the future, areas like networking and security." Two years ago, Chandrasekhar acquired a company named Tayana Software Solutions and this will likely be Jupiter's vehicle for all investments in technology. Circa January 2006, however, it is evident that Chandrasekhar has more clarity about the transportation and leisure businesses than the technology one. Tech is a passion, all right, but it looks like it could take Tayana time to figure out what to do.

The Other Side Of Rajeev Chandrasekhar

After a hectic, sometimes harrowing time running BPL Communications, Chandrasekhar's current schedule is much more relaxed. He sees his son off to school at 7.10 a.m. (that's when the bus picks him up, so it is inflexible) and is in the office by 7.30. He works till 5.30 p.m.; then it is time for a workout, then family. And his enduring passion (apart from music) remains cars. He won't put an exact number on his stable but admits that it is "North of 20, South of 30."

He remembers the time he spent running BPL's mobile telephony businesses fondly, and remains in touch with Bharti Tele-Ventures' Sunil Mittal and Reliance Infocomm's Anil Ambani, both individuals he got to know well, courtesy the telecom business. And he claims (rightly, it emerges) that although BPL Mobile went through its share of troubles (lack of capital, in the main), it did well, and is still doing well, in the circles in which it operates. "It (the experience in the telecom sector) was dramatic in terms of shaping me. I learnt what people would have normally learnt in 30 years"

However, although most of the company's employees chose to stick by Chandrasekhar, shareholders and partners do not recall him very fondly. The foreign shareholders, led primarily by Actis (then Commonwealth Development Corporation), took Chandrasekhar to court, alleging that they had not been consulted about a possible merger of BPL's mobile businesses and those of the Birla-Tata-at&t combine (now Idea Cellular). The merger eventually fell through and one senior executive involved in the discussions admits that "there were a lot of issues and contradictions between promoters, lenders, vendors and shareholders."

That (the alleged problems with partners and shareholders) could return to haunt Chandrasekhar, especially since infrastructure is a business that requires the consortium approach. "In this sector, it is important to work with partners," says IDFC's Miranda. "We need good partners and we are talking to a host of people," says Chandrasekhar. "We will announce a partnership for our foray into the transportation sector in about a month." And numbers themselves tell another version of the story. Chandrasekhar has an investible capital of around Rs 1,000 crore (around $220 million) and has raised $500 million (Rs 2,250 crore) to date for the foray into infrastructure and real estate. Nandan Nilekani, President, CEO, and Managing Director, Infosys Technologies, has known Chandrasekhar for over a decade, ever since his return from the us. He believes Chandrasekhar has what it takes to make it. "Rajeev has a great knack for understanding emerging opportunities in new fields," he says. "He has grown and matured tremendously in the last few years."

"In today, walks tomorrow," says Chandrasekhar, mouthing the motto of Jupiter. It is supposed to indicate how an idea is born today, bereft of anything but the sheer uniqueness of it, and how it learns to walk, even run. Over the next five to 10 years, over Phase III of his life, it could be that for Chandrasekhar. Or it could be the more conventional, and unkind interpretation of the motto: in a business today, out of it tomorrow.