Anil Agarwal on failure and when his decision to acquire Duratube didn’t pay off

Sharing a message on LinkedIn, he wrote, “The fear of failure is ingrained in us from a very young age. But what if I tell you that in business, failure is one of the best things that could happen to you…”

In a long note, he wrote about the success and failure of acquiring sole supplier of British telecom – Duratube.

“Acquiring Duratube was an ambitious task for us. While it was important to establish ourselves in the British business circuit, it was also a risk. When we were in the process of putting our bid, it was around Navratri so my whole family fasted for all 9 days and prayed for my success,” he wrote.

He further added, “Their prayers worked and I managed to acquire the sole supplier of British telecom – Duratube. By now, I had understood the equity part of building a business and managed to get most of the funding from the bank, which was about 3 million pounds. I must have been one of the first Indians to acquire a British company.”

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“My team and I were determined to make this work. We even hired a British managing director because I wanted him to be the face of the company. We were all set to make it big in the UK. We tried to do things ourselves instead of hiring professionals. And maybe, this is where we went wrong,”

He then added that decision to acquire the company did not pay off.

“We had to sell it for 7 million pounds. We made a profit but it was not the growth we knew we could have had,” he wrote.

He also said that the decision to sell the company was difficult, but, he added that it led to the next successful business abroad.

“It was a difficult time for me, but as they say, every setback is a comeback in the making. And here, the cosmos was setting me up for a bigger and better comeback. It eventually led to my next successful business abroad,” he wrote.

He said that success and failure at Duratube taught him one of the fundamental principles of business which is ‘if you miss the mark, you learn how to get it right the next time.’

“Our successes and failures at Duratube taught me so much about running a business abroad. It also taught me one of the fundamental principles of business – if you miss the mark, you learn how to get it right the next time. This eventually led to my next successful business acquisitions – two in Australia and one in Armenia, he wrote. “

Earlier, he also wrote about how the initial several months were difficult to establish himself in a distant country. He learned that the cable business Duratube had filed for bankruptcy while riding the train to Manchester, and he immediately began considering buying it. He also wrote about the 25 percent rule that helped him find his “footing” in the UK.

Agarwal has always shared motivational stories from his own personal experience for the youth or business  

Agarwal is the founder and chairman of Vedanta Resources Limited and controls the business through a holding company, Volcan Investments with a 100% stake in the business. Vedanta Resources is a globally diversified natural resources company that extracts and processes minerals, oil, and gas, engages more than 65,000 employees and contractors, primarily in India, Africa, Ireland, and Australia.

Vedanta Resources products are sold worldwide and are currently headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Vedanta Resources also is the holding company for Vedanta Limited and Konkola Copper Mines, which in turn have multiple subsidiaries.

Born and brought up in Patna, Bihar, Agarwal studied at Miller High School in the same city, and instead of going to a university, he joined his father, Dwarka Prasad Agarwal’s business which was into making aluminum conductors.

Agarwal acquired his first company with a bank loan, Shamsher Sterling Corporation which was meant for manufacturing enameled copper, among other products. He managed Shamsher Sterling and his father’s business for the next 10 years. Later, in 1986, he created Sterlite Industries to set up a factory to manufacture jelly-filled cables – which also became the first private company to set up a copper smelter and refinery in India.

To expand his footprint in the international market, Agarwal incorporated Vedanta Resources Plc in 2003 in London – which also became the first Indian firm to be listed on London Stock Exchange in the same year on December 10