Arun Panchariya has more than 20 years of in-depth experience in
entrepreneurship, industry and trading, spanning across a wide-ranging range of
geographic locations and deal sizes. He is adept in the trading of direct
equities, commodities, futures, derivatives and various other financial and
money market instruments. He provides advisory and consulting services for
global offerings of Indian and international listed & non-¬-listed firms and
has solid connections with debt providers and equity sponsors.
“I
started early…my foundation in the manufacturing industry forced me to acquire
a lot of experience in grassroots businesses, ” Arun
Panchariya says.
TEXTILE AND MANUFACTURING
Arun
Panchariya began his career in 1992 at a proprietary concern-¬- Alka Textile
Mills, and was mainly involved in the business of manufacturing and trading of
textiles, and marketing of its products in the western region of India. In 1994/95, Arun Panchariya joined Alka Spinners Ltd. (later known as Alka
India Ltd) as a full-¬-time director. It is here that he obtained knowledge in
the manufacturing of 100% cotton yarn, blended yarn, textile and spinning yarn.
He also learnt soft skills, administrative skills and corporate culture at Alka
India. In addition, Arun Panchariya made his first foray into the financial
services during this period, when he successfully worked on the Greenfield
project IPO of the company. Being a entire time director, Arun Panchariya personally
developed the fund raising program, and in the process learnt in detail about
working capital, term loans, commercial loans and the fundamental procedures
for the same.
Arun Panchariya became a member of Panchariya Gin Pvt. Ltd. in 1998,
where he learnt all about the ginning industry.
Alka India started its 100% export-¬-oriented software business around the same
time, so Arun Panchariya completed his MCSD/MCSE courses and managed this new
stream of business as well.
During this period, Arun Panchariya was furthermore a Director with Karnavati
Fincap Limited, which in turn changed its name to Vasudev Textiles &
Industries Limited, and was then sold to new management. This company is now
known as Asian Granito Limited, now one of the major players in the tile
industry in India.
The decline in the textile business made Arun Panchariya evaluate other avenues
of business, and in 1999, was appointed as the CEO/MD of Kuber Cooperative
Bank.
“It
wasn’t painless leaving my comfort zone in textiles and penetrating financial
services. I had the IPO experience, but this was a different ball game
entirely. Nevertheless, I took it as a challenge to prove myself… ” -Arun
Panchariya
BANKING-¬- THE FIRST STINT
At Kuber, Arun Panchariya dealt with all facets of retail banking, housing
loans, trade finance and commercial banking. He handled RBI audits, learnt
banking policies, and attended numerous conferences to keep himself
up-¬-to-¬-date with the latest in the banking industry. His hard work showed
great results-¬- at the time of taking over the bank, its capital & net
worth was 3 million INR, this improved to 20 million INR (inclusive profits and
reserves) by the time he retired in
2003, and all its financial years ended in profit. The performance graph of the
bank throughout his tenure was always taking up the ladder.
COMMODITY TRADING
In the
year 2000, Arun Panchariya started traveling to the UAE, where he saw
interesting trading options. This led to him building a general trading
company-¬- Vintage FZE, in Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai. Initially trading in
computer hardware, software and copier paper, Vintage extended its trading
portfolio to include aluminum, heavy metal scrap, copper scrap and commodities
like rice, pistachios, saffron and vegetables. This hands-¬-on experience in
commodity trading helped Arun Panchariya build his base in the trading
industry, and he grew the company from a turnover of US$ 1.3 million at inception
to an extraordinary US$ 141 million in 2009. Meanwhile Alka India also began a
division for trading of physical gold and silver bullion, and this too was
overseen by Arun.
The success of Vintage FZE encouraged Arun Panchariya to switch base to
Dubai, and he voluntarily retired from Alka India and Kuber Bank, so that he
could focus on his trading business which he found more exhilarating.
In 2003, Arun Panchariya signed up with the DGCX and also entered into a
tie-¬-up to market the FX online trading platform of RCG FX London, which was
owned by the 2nd largest commodity broker in Chicago-¬- RCG Group.
During his trip to London, Arun Panchariya was impressed by the
financial market there and saw a lot of opportunity for business.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Pan Asia Advisors, a world-wide corporate advisory firm and boutique
investment-¬-banking firm was established by Arun Panchariya in 2006. Through
PAA, he advised international corporate on Private Equity, Mergers &
Acquisitions, GDR, FCCB and debt funding. Arun Panchariya worked on numerous
transactions and assisted, both directly and indirectly, in raising fund of
more than USD 2 billion in the worldwide market for global corporates. PAA also
helped clients in listings on the Luxembourg, DIFX and Singapore stock
exchanges.
ARUN PANCHARIYA'S CURRENT STATUS
Joined Signature Group on 16th January 2012 as director & partner.
Signature is a private equity and corporate finance firm focused on the
emerging markets of India, GCC and Africa. It presently manages US$ 1.2 billion
of investments in these markets.
Arun Panchariya is also an advisor to The Falcon Fund Limited, which invests in
the mining industry internationally.of meeting new business people, searching
