The history of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group goes back to 1820, when Ramdutt Goenka came to Calcutta (now Kolkata) from a small town in Rajasthan, India, to do business with the British East India Company. By the 1900s, the Goenkas had established themselves in diverse business sectors such as banking, textiles, jute and tea. For their outstanding contribution to business and the community, the Queen of England conferred knighthood on Sir Hariram Goenka and Sir Badridas Goenka. In 1933, Sir Badridas Goenka became the first Indian to be appointed Chairman of the Imperial Bank of India (now the State Bank of India). His son, Keshav Prasad Goenka carried the spirit of entrepreneurship forward. In 1950, the Goenkas acquired two British trading houses—Duncan Brothers and Octavius Steel. After successful acquisitions in the areas of tea, automobiles, tyres, jute, cotton textiles and electric cables,
Keshav Prasad Goenka handed over the reins to his three sons. One of the sons, Rama Prasad Goenka (better known as RP Goenka), establishes RPG Enterprises in 1979, with Phillips Carbon Black, Asian Cables, Agarpara Jute and Murphy India as its constituents. The 1980s were a decade of acquisitions by the group, including CEAT Tyres India (1981),KEC (1982), Searle India, now RPG Life Sciences (1983), Dunlop (1984), Gramophone Company of India Ltd., now Saregama India (1986), and finally CESC, Harrisons Malayalam, Spencer & Co., and ICIM (1989). In the summer of 2011, Sanjiv Goenka took over as chairman of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. In October 2012, the group announced the acquisition of First Source Solutions Ltd, a leading global provider of Business Process Outsourcing services. In the next five years, the group plans to reach new heights involving an investment of more than Rs 30,000 crores.
