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His company, Bharat Thakur Group, now plans to go public with an IPO—arguably the first by anyone in the business of spirituality. You got it right, that’s a company and not an ashram, which the sundry yoga guru has. But Thakur is not your average guru. He is emphatic that what he runs is a business and not an ashram. Yoga entrepreneur turned yoga businessman, Thakur is going about it in a way that may not raise many souls but will surely bring in good capital. As any primer on capital raising will tell you, valuation comes first. “So, we are getting the valuation done,” he says.
To establish the valuation, he is taking the tried and tested route of private placement. “We have been approached by four or five private equity funds. We may offload some equity to the firm that would give us the best valuation,” Thakur says.
When will he enter the capital market? “Sometime next year.” The size of the issue and other details will follow only after the valuation is done. He claims his group closed the last financial year with a Rs 8 crore profit. For a guru of his flamboyance, he is surprisingly coy about his group’s turnover though. His first client—mind you, not disciple—was Sunil Mittal, who at that time wasn’t the giant he is today. It is not known if Thakur learnt his corporate ropes from Mittal, but it is a universal truth that association helps.
His “clients” come from diverse professions with one thing in common—they are all rich. Industrialist Ratan Tata, Sistema chief Vladimir Evtushenkov, cricketer Shane Warne, Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Salman Khan, the entire Bachchan clan. All of them are sold on Thakur’s Artistic Yoga, which is not just yoga but a “product.”
Thakur is has business in India and also in “international markets” like Dubai, Russia and most East Asian countries. The target is now to have a footprint in Europe and the Americas. While yoga training will continue to be its core business, the group plans to diversify to other businesses. “Like education. It will be a key thrust.” The group is in talks with the Andhra Pradesh government to take over some dysfunctional ITIs. “We will bid for these institutes in a consortium with some well known international companies, so that our role is not limited to just training, but we are also able to provide good jobs,” Thakur says.
With such close links to Bollywood—Thakur is also married to filmstar Bhumika Chawla—moving to films is a natural step for his company. He has already floated a firm called DownTown Films. “To start with, our focus will be on Telugu and Tamil films. We will gradually get into Bhojpuri films as well,” he says.
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