Flying Colours

With a slow and steady approach, the Dhingras have made Berger Paints India’s second-largest paint company

- Manu Balachandran

Sitting in his opulent home in Lutyens’ Delhi’s Tees January Marg, which borders the Mahatma Gandhi Smriti, Kuldip Singh Dhingra appears nonchalant despite having leapfrogged 13 places on the 2019 Forbes India Rich List. Along with brother Gurbachan Singh, the 72-year-old patriarch of the Dhingra family is worth a staggering $5.5 billion (₹39,000 crores)—almost equivalent to Bermuda’s GDP. They are No. 21 on the list and a bulk of their wealth comes from their controlling stake in India’s second-largest paint company, Berger Paints.

“I don’t care about all this. This is all paper wealth,” says Kuldip, who’s dressed in a casual half-sleeve shirt and sipping coffee on a pleasant October morning. “We have seen so many people who were there [on the list] and they've disappeared. I don't like to be high profile and much in the public eye. All I want to do is focus on my work.”

This clarity of thought has brought about a change in the gardening enthusiast’s lifestyle as well. “I used to travel a lot,” says Kuldip. “Now I don’t like traveling or socializing. I try and do about 700 meters of swimming every day.” An early riser, he works six days a week and has maintained this work ethic from the time he took over Berger Paints in 1991 from beleaguered liquor baron Vijay Mallya. The brothers are not involved in the day-to-day operations though. “As chairman, I am very active. We work as a team with management. They are busy with the day-to-day operations while we chip in when there are some missing gaps or acquisitions, joint ventures, and planning for which they don’t have time,” says Kuldip.