From selling snacks on the street to building a multi-billion-dollar empire
Mega-Thread on the story of Haldiram's
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1) Ganga Bhisen Agarwal, affectionately known as Haldiram by her mother, started The Haldiram Empire in 1937 before India gained independence.
2) He was born into a Malwadi family in Bikaner and married Champa Devi.
3) He started out selling Bhujia, as per his aunt's recipe in his father's namkeen and snacks shop.
4) However, he and his wife later fled home owing to a family quarrel.
5) Later he started by selling on the street mong daal namkeen prepared by his wife.
6) Haldiram opened his first business in Bikaner in 1946. He began selling his Bikaneri Bhujia there.
7) He recreated the Bhujia by including moth flour and made it thinner. His sales and income improved dramatically because of all of these adjustments.
8) Later on, Haldiram attended a wedding in Kolkata, and only he got the idea to set up his shop there.
9) With this step, the first branching out of the Bikaner Bhujia business was started.
10) Haldiram's sons and grandsons joined him in the family company, which he later grew to greater heights.
11) Moreover, as the corporation grew, a disagreement arose among his younger generation over the Haldiram empire's geographical and trademark rights.
12) Moolchand, Rameshwar Lal, and Satidas, his three sons, are currently operating under Haldiram, Bikaji, Haldiram's Nagpur, Haldiram Bhujiawala, and others.
13) From 1985, Shiv Krishan Agarwal, Haldiram's grandson, and the previous CMD began working on the company's expansion.
14) They increased the shelf life and packaging of the products to international standards.
15) In 2003, the company began the process of developing convenience foods to be marketed to consumers.
16) Haldiram's portfolio now includes over 70 different namkeens and snacks and sweets, beverages, frozen meals, and quick-service restaurants.
17) There are about 400 items sold at Haldiram's. Namkeens, western snacks, Indian sweets, pastries, sherbets, and pickles like Gulab jammun and bhujia, papadum, are among the company's offerings.
18)Nagpur, Delhi, Kolkata, and Bikaner are the main manufacturing locations.
19) Haldiram operates a retail chain and several restaurants in Nagpur and Delhi.
20) Haldiram's products are currently shipped to Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Thailand, and other nations worldwide.
21) Foreign food businesses must go to Desi to succeed in the Indian market, no matter how big they are.
22)Whether it's McDonald's which added Burgers such as Mac Maharaj or the establishment of a Subway Jain counter in Ahmedabad, the company's first all-veg location.
23) As per the Brand Trust Report, Trust Research Advisory in 2014, Haldiram's was placed 55th among India's most trusted brands.
24)Haldiram's also just announced an exclusive master franchisee collaboration with Brioche Doree, the world's second-largest bakery business.
25) Only vegetarian food will be served in the brioche Doree cafes for the first time.
26) Haldiram's revenue surpassed 4000 crores in FY16, outpacing both Domino's and McDonald's combined.
27)In September 2017, Haldiram reclaimed its position as India's leading snack company, outselling PepsiCo's Lays, Kurkure, and Uncle chips.
28)It was also named the country's largest snack company, beating out all domestic and international rivals.
29) Haldiram has never invested much in marketing and promotion to expand the brand. They grew their business mostly through word of mouth.
30) But, due to fierce rivalry, they learned the value of marketing and advertising and began to attract their attention.
31) One of the large campaigns saw Haldirams partnering with the Bollywood film "Prem Ratan Dhan Payo" to host a promotional contest in which they handed 1.5 million snack packets.
32) Kelloggs, the world's second-largest snack company, is eyeing a 3-billion-dollar stake in Haldiram to diversify its portfolio beyond breakfast products and enter the Indian market, as it is difficult for a foreign player to create a desi snacks brand that can compete.
33) A fascinating point to notice is that, like Ganga Bhisan of Bikaner, Keith Kellogg of Michigan in the United States invented a culinary item more than a century ago: corn flakes.
34)Haldiram's sales in 2019 surpassed the $1 billion mark.
35)Haldiram's goods are presently sold in more than 80 countries throughout the world.
36)Haldiram's a hidden jewel of the Indian food industry is today bigger than Hindustan Unilever's packaged food division.
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India may soon own the second-largest steelmaker in Europe.
Thyssenkrupp, the iconic German conglomerate, is in advanced discussions to sell its struggling steel division to India’s Jindal Group.
The scale of this deal is massive.
Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe isn’t just another steel plant.
It’s the industrial core of a nation that once built ships, submarines, and skyscrapers for the world.
For over a century, Germany’s steel sector was synonymous with engineering excellence and economic strength.
But today, that legacy is under pressure.
Here’s the full story:
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Thyssenkrupp is facing a brutal mix of structural problems:
• A pension burden estimated at over ₹35,000 crore
• Aggressive carbon regulations from the EU
• Declining margins due to Chinese oversupply
• Powerful unions blocking cost restructuring
• And a product line that’s struggling to compete globally
The result? A steel division that’s bleeding cash and rapidly losing relevance.
Enter Jindal Steel International.
An Indian company with a global footprint—and a growing appetite.
Backed by the Naveen Jindal Group, this firm has already established steel operations across Oman, Africa, and the Middle East.
Its advantage: low-cost production, strong logistics, and a sharp focus on green steel innovation.
Jindal is now in talks to acquire a majority stake—around 60%—in Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe.
The transaction is being structured in phases:
• Initial majority control
• Joint operations during transition
• Complete buyout over time
Tata has 29 listed companies.
Adani has 10.
Bajaj has 6.
All under the same group name.
This structure often kills value.
80% of group companies globally trade at a discount.
But post-demerger?
Valuations can jump 30–60% within a year.
A thread on India’s great demerger wave:
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For decades, India’s biggest groups ran like empires.
One parent. Dozens of businesses.
All controlled under one umbrella.
It gave power, control, and stability.
But in stock markets? It created something dangerous:
Conglomerate Discount.
What’s a Conglomerate Discount?
Let’s say a business group has:
● ₹40,000 Cr in Steel
● ₹30,000 Cr in Power
● ₹30,000 Cr in Chemicals
Total: ₹1 Lakh Cr in value.
But the stock market says:
“Too complicated. Hard to value. Let’s just price you at ₹60,000 Cr.”
This is the conglomerate discount — when the whole is worth less than the sum of its parts.
Why does this happen?
Because investors hate complexity.
When one company runs 10 businesses:
● You can’t benchmark it easily
● You don’t know what’s dragging what
● Capital gets misallocated
● Profitable arms fund weaker ones
● Governance gets murky