“Forget all the reasons it won't work and believe in the reasons that it will,” Rejesh Ram Satiija told the Asian Rich List a year before this profile. The man behind the Sun & Sand Group of Companies is a recent entrant to the list on the basis that he moved to London recently.
He made his fortune in Africa principally, but relocated to the capital as his home base just over a year ago. London, he said, was the centre of things — not just for his expanding empire but also a conducive place to socialise and do business, and allow his children to study and relax.
“Everything depends on your attitude”— Rejesh Ram Satiija
His empire had just got a little bigger with the acquisition of bauxite and gold reserves in Guinea. One of his biggest and most innovative projects is the construction of new homes and associated facilities in Bhiwadi sector, some 30 miles from Delhi International Airport — called Aqasia Homes Limited.
Ram is known by his close associates and friends to be very spiritual, and has begun to invest more time and funds into charitable activities. Concerned about the plight of girls in India, he supports Rajasthan Bal Kalyan Samiti, an organisation that provides education to about 17,000 students. He also heads the Sun & Sand Foundation, which works in the same area.
His first foray in Africa was a manufacturing plant making ferrous and non-ferrous ingots. He managed to secure a contract with Toyota — one of the few African companies to land such a deal — before cutting deals with Rolls Royce, Honda and Nissan. From manufacturing, he moved into mining tin, gold and copper, continuing to expand his interests to Uganda, Ghana and Rwanda.
Among the companies in his portfolio are Sun and Sand Industries Africa, Super Industries DMCC Dubai, Samsung Overseas Ltd India, Samsung Electro PVT Ltd in India, and Satiija Stud Farms, Sun and Sands Developers and Aqasia Homes.