Business career
Roy joined Sahara Finance, a struggling company, in 1976,[10] that ran a chit fund[11] and took it over. He changed its financial model in 1978. Sahara is said to have used the financial model of much older Peerless Group. They are termed residuary non-banking companies (RNBCs)[12] that accept deposits of very low amounts.
In the 1990s, Roy moved to Lucknow which became the base of his group.[13] From there, it went on to become the largest conglomerate of India with a diversified range of business interests. The company now has interests in financial services, education, real estate, media, entertainment, tourism, healthcare, and hospitality.
The Hindi language newspaper Rashtriya Sahara was started in 1992. In the late 1990s, the ambitious Aamby Valley City project near Pune was initiated. In 2000, Sahara TV was launched which was later renamed Sahara One. In 2003, Sahara started three weeklies: Sahara Time (English), Sahara Samay (Hindi), and Sahara Aalmi (Urdu).[14]
In 2010, Sahara purchased the iconic Grosvenor House Hotel in London,[15] and then in 2012 the historic Plaza Hotel and Dream Downtown Hotel in New York City.[16]
As of 2013, Sahara had a workforce of around 1.2 million including salaried employees, consultants, field workers, agents, and business associates.[17] In 2013, 121,653 of its employees gathered in Lucknow to sing India's national anthem, setting a world record.[18] In 2004, Sahara group was termed by Time magazine as "the second-largest employer in India" after the Government-run Indian Railways. Sahara claimed to have nine crore plus investors and depositors, representing about 13% of all households in India.[19]
In 2017, Roy was planning to foray into online education (Edunguru) in India, which was targeted at small towns and villages. He put a team in place which consists of members from top universities and colleges across India, and even abroad.[20] The route map of the program was prepared, and 14,000 hours of lectures were developed for this.[21]
In June 2019, Roy announced his foray into the automobile sector under the brand name 'Sahara Evols'. The Sahara Evols venture is offering a wide range of electric vehicles (EVs) along with advanced allied services.[22][23][24]
