An Interview With Lady De Rothschild

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L.G.: With the 300 acres that you're experimenting with, using farming techniques that work well in India, have you started to show Indian farmers the techniques?

L.R.: Yes, yes, it started and it was opened by the prime minister [Manmohan Singh]. It was last year. He showed up for the ribbon cutting, and he made an incredibly moving speech. The Indian prime minister is really, to me, one of the spectacular people of the world, and I've seen him speak many times, and he always reads his speech. That day, he put down his speech and he recited a poem, an English poem that he had learned as a young boy about how the land will give to the people and will change lives—a beautiful poem. And then he talked about being so poor that he couldn't afford shoes—his parents were farmers—and how his dream for India is that 600 million people could be lifted out of poverty. And we're talking about lifting them from 50 cents a day to $2 a day.

L.G.: Now you recently sold a good part of your stake to Del Monte Pacific, right?

L.R.: Yes. It was last Friday.

L.G.: So that freed up some more capital for you, I guess. I'm a little confused. I saw there was a $50 million investment. I don't know if that was from E.L. Rothschild, or was that the total? You're in business obviously with Mr. Mittal [telecommunications billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, head of Bharti Enterprises]. How does that all shake out?

L.R.: Well, as an investment for us, it's an 85 percent I.R.R. [internal rate of return]. So it was a very good return on investment for us. And, as important to us, we brought in a partner who's going to take the company to the next level, because neither Bharti nor we had the domain knowledge. We saw the opportunity, we put effort into it, but it really needs domain knowledge. So that was really why we got out. . . . And we've also retained 9.9 percent of the business.

L.G.: Right, right.

L.R.: So I said to Evelyn, We're going to have to do it like Bernard Baruch and get rich by exiting too soon.

L.G.: And your actual time commitment remains the same? Or you're off doing other things now?

L.R.: No, no, our time commitment won't be the same.

L.G.: What else will you do with E.L. Rothschild?

L.R.: We are also looking very seriously at the retail space in India, both in terms of front-end retail as well as Indian brands that we believe have opportunities. I think that'll be the next area where you'll see some announcements from us.

L.G.: When? Can we make some news?

L.R.: Not by the time you go to print. [Laughs.]

L.G.: Give me a hint. I know you're on the Estée Lauder board, and I know you're very interested in luxury goods in India. Would it have something to do with that?

L.R.: Well, we're looking at those. You know India has luxury in its DNA. All you've got to do is look at the maharajas and look at the Taj Mahal. There's no Hermès or Louis Vuitton that's going to tell India anything about luxury. Luxury is a very interesting, undeveloped piece of India. I don't think it will be a big piece for a long time, because of the income level, but I think it's interesting. We do think luxury when we think retail, but we also think more mainstream, aspirational brands and opportunities

L.G.: And the country obviously has an exploding middle class, so that could be a good market internally-or are you thinking for export as well?

L.R.: I am thinking more about the domestic markets, more about the growth of the domestic market, because 10 million people are entering the middle class every year in India. You know, there are more billionaires in India than anyplace else. Let me put it this way: Every day in India, the entire nation of Great Britain is on the train, one way or another. So the numbers are pretty colossal. Seventy million people in India can afford anything they want. It's a small percent, but that's a reasonable number.

L.G.: That's a pretty healthy market.

L.R.: Two hundred fifty million are middle-class, so you might not go for the Chanel glasses, but you sure could go for an Estée Lauder lipstick or a Starbucks coffee.

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