Confidant on the start of the Gupta empire

Here is an extract from 'The Republic of Gupta' written by Pieter-Louis Myburgh, and supplied by Penguin Random House.

It was 1995 and Nelson Mandela’s dream of a Rainbow Nation was within reach and the IT sector sought to exploit the opportunities that accompanied the new political dispensation.

It was within this context that John, a Johannesburgbased businessman, met Atul Gupta and his entourage for the first time. John’s business had a footprint in South Africa’s young IT sector and Atul, who had been busy setting up Correction Computers and Correct Marketing, his two earliest IT ventures, needed help establishing a network of business contacts.

“I was at my business’s premises when four guys pitched up there in a Toyota Camry, one of those with the little wing on the boot. One of the men introduced himself as Atul Gupta,” recalls John.

The other men were introduced to him as Mr Roger, Ashu and Tony. Ashu would turn out to be Ashu Chawla, the Gupta associate who would later become the CEO of Sahara Computers. Tony may well have been Rajesh ‘Tony’ Gupta.

This first encounter was the start of a business relationship that would last for years, one that would give John a frontrow seat to the rapid evolution of the Guptas’ earliest ventures into a multibillion-rand business empire.

“At that stage they knew nobody in town. They were going around making contacts and finding people who could help them with various aspects concerning their new business.”

About two years after that first meeting, Atul told John that the family had decided to move their IT endeavours under the umbrella of a new brand and identity, namely Sahara Computers. As the business grew, the Guptas opened a second store in Midrand. This would serve as an assembly facility for Sahara Computers.

By 1998, Atul’s Toyota Camry was replaced with a BMW M5. “I remember how proud Atul was of his new car,” John recalls. It would seem that by now Atul viewed John as a confidant.

“It was around the time that Atul showed me his new car that he mentioned the name Jacob Zuma,” says John.

Atul allegedly told John that he was paying school fees for some of Zuma’s children.

John’s knowledge of the Guptas’ certainly suggests he was privy to information that could only have come from the family.