Kartar Singh Thakral | Sikh Entrepreneur

Source: billionairesaustralia.com

Kartar Singh Thakral is the Chairman of the Thakral Group, a Singapore-based international corporation with businesses in electronics, property, luxury tourism and hospitality, media, and technology.

In this article, chart the story Mr Thakral’s success having risen from humble beginnings working for his father’s small textiles shop to now boasting business assets worth in excess of $2 billion.

Early Career

Kartar Singh was born on 22 September 1933 in Thailand and educated at the Assumption College in Bangkok. Despite being the fifth of seven children, Kartar was groomed in the humble family business at an early age. The business itself began when Kartar’s father, Sohan Singh, migrated from Punjab, India to Thailand to help his guardian with a textile business. Sohan set up his own shop in 1905, and 30 years later Kartar and his father moved to Japan to open a purchasing office directly at the source of the textiles industry, allowing them to purchase textiles at cheaper prices.

At the start of World War II, the pair had to move back to Thailand, but Kartar relocated to Singapore alone in 1952 to set up a new branch of the family business. Named Thakral Brothers, the office began to thrive under Kartar’s management and contributed to the overall profits of the family business. It was around this time that Kartar married a local Punjabi girl and started a family of his own.

Company Expansion

It wasn’t long before Kartar displayed the business mind and foresight that had seen his father thrive, and he managed to keep consistently ahead of his competitors by identifying new opportunities in emerging markets. This foresight prompted the creation of a Hong Kong office as Kartar began moving his trade into China, and in 1973 his expansion encouraged him to register Thakral Brothers as a limited company.

Over the coming years, Kartar Singh pushed the company to branch out into electronic distribution. Thakral Brothers quickly secured distribution rights to many Japanese consumer electronics brands and the firm enjoyed the benefits of the Japanese electronics boom throughout the 1970s and 80s.

During the 1980s, Kartar became one of the first business owners to begin exporting televisions and videocassette recorders to India and, soon after, China, helping him to maintain his standing as the forefront of his industry for the next decade. Riding on this success, the company soon established offices in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Chengdu, and the Thakral Brothers’s hold over the Chinese market continued throughout the 1980s and into the mid-1990s.

Investing in Australia

During the 1990s, the group continued to expand across Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates and the USA. It is this truly global domination of the market that has made Mr Thakral such a coveted wealthy figure at Billionaires Australia.

The group also made a number of risky acquisitions, investing in luxury Sydney hotels and Australian property throughout the 1990s. As part of his expansion into the Australian business and real estate market, Kartar Singh purchased the All Seasons Hotel Group, giving him control of over 4,500 hotel rooms.

This move soon paid off and the company is now one of Australia’s largest hotel operators. Kartar’s son Rikhipal Singh Thakral now runs the companies’ real estate and property portfolio across Australia and the rest of the world, and holds investments in a number of properties within the luxury lifestyle sector, including luxury condominiums in Singapore.

The Thakral Group currently includes Thakral Brothers (Pte) Ltd, Thakral Holdings and Thakral Corporation, which has been listed in the Singapore Stock Exchanges since 1995. The group currently employs a total of over 12,000 people across 32 different countries and has assets over $2 billion.

Awards and Accolades

Kartar’s impressive rise from his father’s small textile shop to a multi-million dollar international corporation has earned him and his family a number of accolades from the business community. In 1995, Kartar was named Businessman of the Years at the Singapore Business Awards. Thakral Brothers was also named Singapore’s top privately held company at the Enterprise 50 awards in 1995. Kartar also played a vital role in the construction of the Nishan-E-Sikhi Tower at Khadoor Saheb, which prepares the youth in different fields so they can compete in the fast-paced world.

Family and Personal Life

Like many traditional Sikh family-oriented entrepreneurs, Kartar Singh did not believe that acquiring formal higher education was necessary to promote success. None of Kartar’s children were sent to attain a university education and instead he introduced them into the family business himself, allowing them to learn the industry as they worked.

Kartar’s son Inderbethal was the first to become involved in the Thakral Group, contributing to the company’s technology success in the 1990s. Working closely with his father, Inderbethal confirmed the Thakral Group as the main wholesale dealer of a number of luxury brands and major Japanese companies including Panasonic, Sharp and Sony.

The second of Kartar’s sons to take up the family business, Rikhipal Singh serves as a managing director of Thakral (Indo-China) Pte Ltd. and a non-executive director of the Thakral Holdings Group Limited since 1996. Rikhipal also manages the company’s real estate portfolio, taking control of luxury property across the globe.

Karan Singh also followed in his father’s footsteps and helped propel the corporation into the consumer electronics market throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Keen on supporting other entrepreneurs, Karan served as a judge on Asia’s first business-focused reality programme7 Angel’s Gate, which sees entrepreneurs compete for funding and fame before a TV and online audience. Karan is also recognised as mentoring wealthy internet entrepreneur Ash Singh, who was named one of Asia’s Best Young Entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek Magazine in 2009 after creating Interactive SG, the producer of Angel’s Gate. Karan’s daughter is now married to Mr Singh and they have a son of their own.

Overall, eight members of the Thakral family, including one of Kartar Singh’s brothers, four of his sons and three of his nephews, are employed by the group and to play a key role in the group’s management. This continued family investment in the success of the Thakral Group has helped make Kartar Singh Thakral Singapore’s 25th richest person and one of Billionaire Australia’s persons of note.