Lord Swraj Paul, NRI industrialist and founder of UK-based Caparo Group, has died in London, family sources said. He was 94. Paul had taken ill and was hospitalised recently, where he died surrounded by members of his family.
The House of Lords peer was born in Jalandhar and relocated to the United Kingdom in the 1960s in pursuit of treatment for his little daughter Ambika’s cancer. After she died at the age of 4, he set up the Ambika Paul Foundation as a charitable trust that went on to donate millions to promote the well-being of children through education and health initiatives.
“The London Zoo is where she was always the happiest,” Paul had said last month, during the annual commemoration at the Ambika Paul Children’s Zoo in London—one of the major beneficiaries of the foundation.
After he lost his son Angad Paul in 2015 and his wife Aruna in 2022, he went on to undertake similar philanthropic endeavours in their memory.
“This hall is a tribute to my wonderful wife whom I miss very much. We never had an argument during our 65 years of marriage,” Lord Paul had said at the inauguration the Lady Aruna Swraj Paul Hall at the historic Indian Gymkhana Club in London in February 2023.
A regular in the annual ‘Sunday Times Rich List’, this year he was ranked 81st with an estimated wealth of £2 billion, largely derived from the steel and engineering conglomerate Caparo Group.
Headquartered in London, Caparo operates internationally from over 40 sites, with operations based in the UK, North America, India, and the Middle East. His son, Akash Paul, is the chairman of Caparo India and a director of the Caparo Group.