Gopichand P. Hinduja was the genial public face of the London-based billionaire family who presided over a trading and industrial empire that spanned continents. From their base that stretched from New Zealand House, just off Trafalgar Square, Gopichand, known in business circles as GP, and his elder brother Srichand entertained a glittering mix of London’s movers and shakers alongside the well-connected British Asian community.
Srichand and then Gopichand directed the fortunes of the Hinduja Group from London, while their younger brothers oversaw far-flung branches of the conglomerate. Prakash operated first from Switzerland, where the family owned Hinduja Bank, and later from Monaco. The youngest brother, Ashok, based himself in Mumbai to manage Indian operations.
Between them, they built a web of more than 40 companies spanning energy, banking, healthcare and transport, employing over 200,000 people.
The jewel in the Hindujas’ crown remains Ashok Leyland, a powerhouse in India’s heavy-vehicle sector with roughly 31 per cent of the market, rivalling Tata Motors. The family’s interests in India also include IndusInd Bank and a 1,040 MW thermal power station near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
At a meeting with Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandra Babu Naidu in London just days ago they pledged to invest ₹20,000 crore to expand into green energy and build an electric vehicle plant in the state.
The brothers were consummate networkers and familiar figures at high-society events, hosting a steady procession of cabinet ministers, tycoons and successful British Asians, including at the family’s famed Diwali celebrations at their palatial London home.
At one party thrown by the brothers in New Zealand House all the top members of Britain's Conservative Party shadow cabinet turned up.
They were fixtures on Britain’s Sunday Times Rich List, frequently topping it, most recently in 2025 with an eye-watering fortune of more than $45 billion. The brothers have topped the Sunday Times Rich List for the last four years running. Still Gopichand cultivated a low-key, courteous public persona.
Born on 29 January 1940 in Mumbai, Gopichand was the second of four brothers. He joined the family business in 1959 after graduating from Jai Hind College in Bombay and was dispatched at just 18 to run operations in Iran, a baptism by fire. “We were thrown into the business from the grassroots,” he would later recall.
His father, Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, a Sindhi trader, had started out dealing in carpets, tea and hardware. The young Gopichand absorbed both the hard work ethic and what he described as the family’s unshakeable code: “Our father said we have to meet our commitments even if we have to sell our shirt.”
When the family relocated to London in the late 1970s, ahead of Iran’s revolution, New Zealand House became their headquarters and Carlton House Terrace, close to St James’s Park and Buckingham Palace, their home.
Gopichand favoured a gentle, reflective approach to business. One of his best-known habits was his morning walk through St James’s Park. “Any businessman comes with any proposal … I tell him to come for a walk and I give him a coffee. I walk exactly from 7.45 till 8.45, and from 8.45 to 8.55 there is a coffee free of cost,” he said. “The coffee is free but only for those who can keep up.”
It was during one of these walks that the idea for redeveloping the Old War Office building on Whitehall, later opened as the Raffles London hotel, took shape.
“The OWO will be my greatest legacy to London,” he declared about the £1.4 billion project unveiled in 2023, where guests can stay in Winston Churchill’s former office for between £18,000 and £25,000 (Rs 20,80,256 and Rs 28,89,245) a night.
Under Srichand and Gopichand’s stewardship, the family made bold moves: the purchase of Gulf Oil in 1984 and the acquisition of Ashok Leyland in 1987 marked the group’s transformation from a trading house into a global industrial conglomerate.
Gopichand attributed his success to self-discipline and faith. “If you have faith in yourself, you will always be successful,” he said.
He was famed for quick decisions. “We brothers don’t have any investment committees; we take decisions on the spot,” he once remarked. On one occasion, while walking with an American acquaintance who pitched a cybersecurity venture, GP agreed to buy a controlling 51 per cent stake – on the condition he could develop the product at one-fifth the projected cost and within six months rather than two years.
Under his leadership, the group pushed into new frontiers, from telecoms and healthcare to renewable energy. He was instrumental in the rise of IndusInd Bank and guided Ashok Leyland through liberalisation and heavy global competition.
Despite immense wealth, he insisted, “I don’t think money plays an important role in life. What is important in life is to give happiness to others.” A deeply spiritual man, GP was a lifelong follower of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda.
He and his family funded hospitals, schools and disaster-relief projects in India and the UK through the Hinduja Foundation. “You don’t have to be rich to do good,” he liked to say. “You only need to be good to do good.”
A vegetarian teetotaller, he credited his mother, Jamuna, with instilling in him the twin values of generosity and spirituality. Her mantra, he said, was to feed everyone within reach.
He was also a workaholic. He admitted at the age of 47 that he had never taken a break, not even weekends. When his doctor finally ordered rest, he agreed to holidays but still brought along secretaries and staff, working from 7am to 11pm.
But even as the Hindujas scaled peaks, they also faced bitter controversy. The family was pitched into the Bofors arms scandal of the late 1980s, accused of receiving kickbacks in an Indian howitzer deal with the Indian government. After years of legal battles, Indian authorities dropped all charges in 2005 for lack of evidence.
The empire faced renewed turbulence during the UK’s “cash-for-passports” controversy in 2001, when it emerged the brothers had donated £1 million to the Millennium Dome project while their citizenship applications were pending. The revelation led to the resignation of then trade minister Peter Mandelson, though the Hindujas denied wrongdoing and were cleared of any illegal conduct.
In later years, as Srichand’s health declined, Gopichand became the de facto patriarch. After his brother died in 2023 at the age of 87, he formally took over as group chairman.
Even so, internal rifts began to surface. A bitter dispute over control of family assets erupted between Gopichand and his brother Prakash on one side and the heirs of the ailing Srichand on the other, with court proceedings in both Switzerland and London. The feud, later settled, exposed cracks within a dynasty that had long proclaimed its motto as: “Everything belongs to everyone and nothing to anyone.”
Gopichand died on Tuesday at the age of 85 after a long illness.
He married Sunita Gurnani in 1963. She survives him, along with their two sons, Sanjay and Dheeraj, and a daughter, Rita.
“He was humble and joyful, and a friend to everyone he met,” the Hinduja family said in a statement. “He will also be remembered for his formidable work in building the Hinduja Group over the past 70 years into the global success it is today.”
It remains uncertain whether leadership of the group will now shift to one of Gopichand’s two surviving brothers, Prakash or Ashok. Dheeraj Hinduja, Gopichand’s son, chairs Ashok Leyland, while his brother Sanjay leads Gulf Oil International.