May 24, 2026

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AIMING FOR THE SUN

IN A SINGLE STROKE, the deal takes Sun Pharma from being India's largest drugmaker to a top-tier global pharmaceutical company doubling its annual revenue to $12 billion, increasing its presence to 150 countries, and giving it a 24,000-strong commercial sales force operating on the same field as Pfizer and AstraZeneca.Whether it cements Shanghvi's legacy as the architect of India's first truly global pharma major, or whether, after four decades of disciplined wins, it finally tests the limits of his manual, will mould what comes next not just for Sun Pharma--where a new generation is ready to take on more--but also for the Indian pharmaceutical industry. "I'm happy, excited, also a little bit anxious. It is a large transaction that we are entering into," Shanghvi said at a press conference announcing the deal.A man who has spent over four decades being almost pathologically cautious is now writing the largest cheque of his life, a contrast that traces back to a wholesale medicine shop in the dust and din of Kolkata's bustling Dawa Bazar. It is also the first time he is stepping into businesses and geographies where Sun has limited prior operating experience.With Organon, Shanghvi is taking Sun into a different league, competing not just with the world's largest generics manufacturers, but increasingly with multinational pharmaceutical companies that control innovation, brands and commercial reach."As a company, we always want to compete with players bigger than us," Shanghvi had told Business Today in an earlier interaction. "In each of the businesses we are present in, like generics, we have become a very big player because we continue to grow." For a businessman who began with five psychiatry products and one salesman, the scale of the leap has been extraordinary.FROM DAWA BAZAR TO BIG PHARMA Shanghvi's father, Shantilal, ran a small medicine distributorship business in Kolkata, where the young Dilip, by his own account, would pore over drug labels and wonder how the molecules inside the bottles were made. For most boys growing up in such a setting, the predictable arc would have been to inherit the shop, marry well, and settle into the comfortable rhythms of the city's wholesale trade. Shanghvi chose a different path.In the summer of 1983, the 28-year-old borrowed `10,000 from his father, packed up for Vapi in Gujarat,

CRICKET'S NEW GLOBAL ORDER

April 18, 2008. M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. Lazershow. Floodlights. Noise. It felt less like the birth of a sports league and more like a music concert. The stands were also filled with faces more familiar with film sets and boardrooms than cricket. Cricketers, many still adjusting to the shortest format of the game, found the highstakes auctions surreal, still overwhelmed by how their names sparked bidding wars.In the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) dugout sat Sourav Ganguly, India's former captain, beside men he had sledged while representing India. Tonight, they wore the same jersey, sharing the same dressing room.The crowd didn't care. They were already in love as Brendon McCullum walked out to bat alongside Ganguly, swinging from the very first ball. A Kiwi, batting in Bengaluru, under an Indian captain, for an Indian-owned franchise, scoring 158 not out off 73 balls. The IPL had made a promise on opening night. McCullum kept it.Off the field, millions tuned in that evening, and every evening after. The timing couldn't be better. India had just won the inaugural ICC World T20, and an entire nation was hungry for more. The IPL was ready to feed that appetite.But not everyone was convinced. Critics dismissed the league as a vanity project, a flashy playground for the rich, driven more by branding than business logic. The excitement, they argued, would be short-lived.What began as a spectacle 18 years ago has now become one of the most valuable sports businesses in the world and, increasingly, an asset class. The recent ownership churn at Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Rajasthan Royals (RR), both changing hands at valuations around `16,000 crore, makes this clear. Even accounting for differences in deal structure, these transactions provide the first credible market benchmarks for IPL franchise valuations.The IPL is now a sporting ecosystem that generated a revenue of over $1.5 billion, which translates into 8% of India's sports industry, estimated around $19 billion, in FY25, according to the KPMG report.THE ECONOMICS The original revenue model was straightforward: centrally shared broadcasting revenue by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), match-day ticket sales, jersey sponsorships, and merchandise. There were no global franchise extensions, no branded cafés, no 360-degree content monetisation. Owners came on board more for visibility than returns, which were hard to find."It was a vanity buy initially. The leadership team from the BCCI and everybody else involved with the league were going to their personal contacts, and it was hard to convince them to invest," says Dhiraj Malhotra, founding member of the IPL leadership team, currently CEO, Washington Freedom & Welsh Fire, and former CEO of Delhi Capitals (IPL).The initial franchise owners were on board for branding and had less knowledge of cricket. However, that changed over the years, and owners now come with knowledge of the game. "They are following the future tour programmes of the teams, following domestic cricket. There is genuine interest. They understand how a team is to be built, how you build it not just around superstars but as per player utility," he adds.Over 70% of franchise revenues are derived from centrally shared media rights and sponsorship pools, with only limited dependence on on-field performance. Revenues flow in whether your team wins or loses, every season.