Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Indian Jeweler Becomes Billionaire as Gold Price Surges

T.S. Kalyanaraman is beloved by his customers and detested by his rivals for bringing transparency to jewelry sales in India, where haggling is the norm.

He opened a shop in the southern Indian state of Kerala in 1993 and taught customers how to test the purity of their gold to expose cheating craftsmen. He was also the first jeweler in town to attach price tags to his gold and gem collection, angering competitors who accused him of ruining the trade.

Two decades later, the 65-year-old has become a billionaire as a 12-year rally in gold prices fails to damp demand in India, the world’s largest consumer of the precious metal. He owns 44 stores in India and plans to open 36 more by March 2014, including five in the Middle East.
“Less profit, more turnover; that is what we believe in,” Kalyanaraman, chairman of Kalyan Jewellers, said in a phone interview from Kerala.

Read the rest here.

(ht Douglas Delgado-Landaeta)

2 comments:

  1. Indian goverment is doing its best to destroy the Gold market there. Must. Protect. The. Ponzi.

    Nice to see a true free market approach yield success though.

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  2. Now since the import duty is raised from 4% to 6%, gold demand will surely go down this year. Will it help the current account deficit? Only time will tell.

    Amod

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