East India Co

A Mumbai-born entrepreneur plans to relaunch the East India Company after aggressively acquiring shares in the firm that once ruled India. With a $15 million investment and inputs from a range of experts, from designers and brand researchers to historians, Sanjiv Mehta plans to open the company store in Conduit Street of the main Regent Street in the heart of London next month. Describing it as an achievement, Mehta said, “I have this huge feeling of redemption, this indescribable feeling of owning a company that once owned us.” Mehta said he travelled around the world, visiting former East India Company trading posts and museums, reading up records and meeting people who understood business of that time. “There was a huge sense of responsibility. I did not create this brand, But I wanted to be as pioneering as the merchants who created it,” he said.