RG Chandramogan’s success story is one of the most remarkable among Indian billionaires. Despite being almost broke and walking away from education, he went on to establish one of the largest private dairy companies in the country, in terms of sales. Now 74 years old, Chandramogan is the chairman of Hatsun Agro Product. He began this business as a small venture, selling ice cream on pushcarts.
Chandramogan, a business tycoon based in Chennai, is known to some as a human computer due to his exceptional grasp of numbers and mathematics. Ironically, it was a failure in a math exam that prompted him to leave education and enter the business world at the age of just 21.
Chandramogan was born to a father who owned a small provision shop. However, he did not pursue further education and instead began his career working at a timber depot for a salary of Rs 65. After a year, he quit his job and started an ice cream business with just three workers out of a 250 sq ft room. He began with an initial investment of Rs 13,000, which he obtained by selling family property. His ice cream was sold on 15 pushcarts.
Although Chandramogan’s company faced difficulties in its early years, it managed to generate a revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh in its first year, which gave him the confidence to persevere. In 1981, while still running a small business, Chandramogan had a breakthrough when he identified a gap in the ice cream market in smaller towns. He capitalized on this opportunity by establishing his ‘Arun’ ice cream brand, which became a market leader in Tamil Nadu, despite being ignored by larger brands. In 1986, he renamed his company as Hatsun Agro Product, which is its current name.
Hatsun Agro Product, one of India’s largest private dairy companies, sources milk from over 4 lakh farmers in 10,000 villages on a daily basis. From its humble beginnings, the company now boasts a market capitalization of Rs 18,889 crore. According to Forbes rich list, RG Chandramogan, the chairman of Hatsun, has a net worth of over Rs 13,000 crore ($1.7 billion). The company’s dairy products are used in 42 countries. While Chandramogan holds the position of chairman, his son C Sathyan serves as the Managing Director of Hatsun.
