Wipro creates millionaires in a small town..

[quote:a0a72d79c0]Wipro creates millionaires in a small town, hundreds of miles away from Dalal Street
Sunday June 6 2004 00:41 IST
AMALNER (JALGAON): Maybe this is one small town market-bashers should visit in these days of frenzy.

It's like any other remote Indian town_dirty bylanes and bullock-carts, harassed cyclists pulling up to let cattle and people pass, rickshaw pullers and hawkers of red chillies and clove.

The difference, though, is that many of them are lakhpatis_even crorepatis. It is an amazing story of what a company, Wipro, and its shares can do to the lives of ordinary people, hundreds of miles and tech generations away from Dalal Street.

Most here may not know what a computer looks like, mobile telephones go dead 30 kilometres from their borders, and morning newspapers don't reach them until long past noon. Yet in this little sepia town, 425 kilometres from Pune, small-time traders and factory hands double up as stock brokers and financial news junkies.

Much of this town's life and hopes revolve around Wipro shares, those pieces of paper stashed away in too many home cupboards since 1947, when Azim Premji's father Mohammad Hussain Hasham Premji set up the company's first plant here. Then it was Western India Vegetable Products and had got listed on the stock exchange in 1946.

Decades and an info-tech boom later, Amalner's residents are cashing in on Wipro.

``If you want to marry off your daughter, buy a Wipro share the day she is born, leave the rest to Azim seth,'' is now Amalner's mantra. Or if it's a hospital, a mosque, or anything else that requires money to build _ they simply dip into their Wipro shares.

``Park your vehicle somewhere nearby. It will not go inside the lane,'' a 26-year-old Alpesh Thakkar, assistant to local broker Satish Khanderia, points to Barabhai Mohallah, now Jewellers' Street. It is a row of houses screaming for a coat of paint. The only thing out of place is the spanking new two-storey mansion of Shaikh Masoom.

Zahoor Ahmed Haji Sheikh Masoom, 65, the patriarch of a 32-member family, owns about 70,000 Wipro shares_last valued at over Rs 10 crore. ``Mujhe thodi si English ati hain," says the retired headmaster as he throws a smile at his curious kin peeping through the door. ``My father was a tobacco merchant but also sold Wipro products. Mohammad seth used to come to our shop and that's how he took those shares,'' he explains.

The five shares that Shaikh Masoom bought in 1947 from Premji senior for Rs 100 each have today gone up _ after several bonuses, stock splits and a bit of trading _ to 70,000.

Today, Zahoor and his brothers, all except one (Kamil Ahmed, who works for Wipro), lead a contented retired life. ``He (Azim Premji) is a Kohinoor. He deserves to flourish. With his growth we will also grow. Azim seth 'ne Amalner ka naam bahut uncha kiya'," says Zahoor's younger brother Manzoor Ahmed.

But the Wipro windfall hasn't changed the Zahoor family's lifestyle. It's the same for most of those similarly blessed in Amalner. ``Their wants are few. Even if they have the money, they live in the same style. It's a tradition. They just keep the wealth with them," says Umesh Nanda, Chief Executive (Manufacturing) of Wipro, who's been here since 1988, occupying a sparse office in the company plant.

Hamzabhai Kadarbhai Bohari, 86, who gave up his hardware business some time ago, is paralysed and too ill to talk. His son says Hamzabahai bought five shares for Rs 100 each a long time ago. He's today rich enough to spend Rs 50 lakh to build a Bohra masjid. ``We have enough shares to fund this project. One-forth of the work is over and the rest will be completed soon,'' the son says. Locals, however, believe someone who bought some goods from Bohari's hardware shop and couldn't pay him gave him those five shares.

There's also a retired commerce professor who sold all but 50 of his Wipro shares to build a Rs 13.5-lakh hospital for his son. ``In a single trading, I made a windfall and now the stock market is my full-time passion,'' says Prof R.R. Bahujune, who retired as assistant vice-principal of Amalner's Pratap College. The hospital, of course, is named Wipro House because it was built entirely out of Wipro share earnings.

Sunil Maheshwari, Amalner's chief raconteur, doesn't own Wipro shares himself but advises nearly 30 clients_from a paanwallah to the local cloth shop owner_ all Wipro shareholders.

``During 1985, nobody wanted Wipro shares. If you had to trade in Wipro, you had to do it only in Amalner. Bombay brokers were clueless. You could see Wipro share prices listed only once in 15-20 days,'' he adds.

``Nearly 3 per cent of all Wipro shareholders are from Amalner,'' he says, sitting before a computer in his home-office. ``Most of them don't even know English. They have entered the market only because of Wipro. They just want to check out Wipro share prices, that's their only interest.''

Satish Khanderia, 43, a former Wipro employee and now franchisee for Sharekhan, receives about 100 calls daily. ``At least 95 would be to ask for the day's rate for Wipro,'' he says. Khanderia quit his job in 1996 after making a windfall with the 200 Wipro shares that he had bought at Rs 200 each. Today he has 6,000 shares, a bungalow and a flourishing brokerage business. "When I joined Wipro in 1981, my monthly salary was Rs 478. Today, I earn that much an hour, all because of Wipro.''[/quote:a0a72d79c0]
Wipro (Western India Products Limited) was started in Amalner.. (in Maharashtra)..

Dinesh