From an ancestral holding of a few hun-
dred acres, Siddhartha had by then ac-
quired close to 6,000-7,000 acres. The In-
fosys IPO came along. This was a turning
point, which shaped and defined some of
his most profitable investments in the in-
formation technology sector over the next
decade and a half. In 1993, on the advice
of investment banker Nimesh Kampani,
he bought around 60,000 shares of un-
dersubscribed Infosys ahead of its listing.
He exited the stock in six months mak-
ing 6x returns. Tiger Ramesh, CEO, Ma-
gnasoft, one of Siddhartha’s companies,
recalls: “When he invested in undersub-
scribed Infosys and made a windfall gain
out of the stock, that was his first experi-
ence with what IT could do in the stock
market.” His subsequent investments into
other IT firms, especially Mindtree, was a
no brainer said Ramesh.
In parallel, Siddhartha was also invest-
ing time in his family’s coffee business. He
led several representations to the Centre
on behalf of coffee growers, to free up cof-
fee for exports from the controlled pooling
regime. “He was young, determined, sharp
and also an influential man. He knew
what potential coffee had,” recalls Bopan-
na, who was a part of the coffee growers
delegation. Once coffee as a commodity
was freed up, Siddhartha’s dreams for cof-
fee really took off. He set up Amalgamated
Bean Coffee Trading Company (ABC) to
export green coffee in 1993 and dabbled
with the idea of an internet cafe shop on
Brigade Road in Bengaluru.HIGHS AND LOWS OF COFFEE
On his return to India from a trip to Sin-
gapore, Siddhartha wanted to set up a café
like he had seen there. Poornima Jairaj
(wife of K. Jairaj, a retired IAS officer from
the Karnataka cadre), who was working
with Sivan Securities, joined hands with
Siddhartha to set up the first cyber café
in the heart of Bengaluru’s central busi-
ness district in 1996. “The idea was to sell
coffee but in a space where internet can
be free. It was a revolutionary idea in the
mid-1990s,” recalls K. Jairaj. But the real
foundation began in 2000. S.M. Krishna
was the Chief Minister at that time. Sid-
dhartha had already set up several compa-
nies like Ganga Coffee Curing Works, A.N.HOW SIDDHARTHA
AND CCD SLIPPED
THROUGH THE CRACKS
6 DEC 1993
Siddhartha sets up
Amalgamated Bean
Coffee Trading Co1995
Coffee Day Group opens
stores to sell coffee powder
and beans under ‘Fresh &(^1996) Ground’ label
The first Café Coffee Day
(CCD) outlet opens on
Brigade Road in Bengaluru’s
central business district 8 MAY 2000^
Way2Wealth
Securities is set up to
provide financial interme-
diary services by spinning
off the securities broking
division of Sivan Securities
2005
Goes global with
first international
café in Vienna
2010
Standard Chartered
Private Equity
(Mauritius) II Limited,
KKR Mauritius PE
Investments II Limited and
NLS Mauritius LLC invest
$210 million
2011
Group acquires Sical
Logistics in 2011
for 200 crore 20 MAR 2015 ABC changes name to NOV 2015 Coffee Day Global Coffee Day Enterprises’ IPO of1,150 crore receives
tepid response SEP 2017
I-T authorities
conduct search
operations at CCD
headquarters and
Siddhartha’s estates
and house
JAN 2019
IT department attaches
Siddhartha and
company’s 20% stake in
Mindtree, blocking
sale of shares
MAR 2019
L&T agrees to
buy CDEL’s and
Siddhartha’s stake
for 980/share MAY 2019 Siddhartha uses 2,100 crore from
Mindtree sale to
retire debt
JULY 29
He goes missing
near a bridge in
Mangaluru
JULY 31
Siddhartha’s body
found in the
Netravati river