The Goenka family belongs to the Marwadi community of money-lenders and tradesmen, and hails originally from Rajasthan in western India. As early as the 19th century, an enterprising member of the family, Ramdutt Goenka, set up base in Kolkata, which was then the capital of India, and a major commercial hub of the British Empire. The family prospered in its traditional vocations of money-lending and trade. It was in the 1970s that Rama Prasad Goenka (b.1930) leveraged the family's wealth to take over a variety of industries and corporates and thus create a ready-made business conglomerate. Many of these corporates were stressed due to the socialistic policies and the "License Raj" then prevalent in India, and others were marked by the disagreements within the families of their owners. In a series of takeovers, RPG acquired such companies relatively cheap and used his financial resources and business acumen to make them viable. In this way, by the end of the 20th century, RPG had cobbled together a significant business empire. The Goenka business empire is remarkable for two things: firstly, the fact that none of their major ventures were founded by them, all being take-overs; and secondly , the resultant diversity and incoherence of these companies.
The Goenka family belonged to the Marwari community of money-lenders and tradesmen, and hailed originally from Rajasthan in western India. As early as the 19th century, an enterprising member of the family, Ramdutt Goenka, set up base in Kolkata, which was then the capital of India, and a major commercial hub of the British Empire. The family prospered in its traditional vocations of money-lending and trade. It was in the 1970s that Rama Prasad Goenka (b.1930) leveraged the family's wealth to take over a variety of industries and corporations and thus created a ready-made business conglomerate. Many of these corporations were stressed due to the socialistic policies and the "License Raj" then prevalent in India, and others were marked by the disagreements within the families of their owners. In a series of takeovers, RPG acquired such companies relatively cheap and used his financial resources and business acumen to make them viable. In this way, by the end of the 20th century, RPG had cobbled together a significant business empire. The Goenka business empire is remarkable for two things: first, none of their major ventures were founded by them, but all were takeovers of existing companies owned by other families or corporations; and second , the resultant diversity and incoherence of these companies.
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