Uganda’s Sudhir Ruparelia has been named the richest man in East Africa by American magazine Forbes, a leading source for reliable business news and financial information.
Sudhir Ruparelia, East Africa’s richest man, is new to the Forbes World’s Billionaires list this year.
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| Ruparelia Group head Sudhir Ruparelia. |
He is the founder of the Ruparelia Group, Uganda’s largest conglomerate, with interests in property, banking, education, insurance and agriculture.
It owns a chain of hotels, hundreds of commercial and residential properties in Kampala, a country club, a chain of foreign exchange bureaus, two secondary schools and Crane Bank, one of Uganda’s top three commercial banks.
In 2013 he acquired Uganda’s Victoria University, promising to invest $10 million in the next few years to make it one of East Africa’s finest.
He was born in Uganda but moved to the United Kingdom with his parents at age 16 after President Idi Amin expelled all Asians in 1972.
He worked small jobs in the U.K. and returned to Uganda in 1985 with $25,000 in savings. He started a commodities trading business and foreign exchange bureaus. His son and daughter, Rajiv and Meera occupy senior positions in his company.