NRI
Rita Sharma is the richest Asian woman in London
95 million pound five-star
holiday web site
London, March 22, 2005
NRI Rita Sharma has emerged as the richest
Asian woman in London with a wealth of £95
million, five-star holiday web site called bestatravel.co.uk.
20 years after she set up her own small travel
business.
There was a time when Indian-born Rita Sharma
used to sell airline tickets to make ends meet,
but today she is the ninth richest Asian entrepreneur
in Britain, thanks to her roaring travel agency
business, which she started from a small office
on London's Oxford Street.
Today she is in the top 25 in a poll of Britain's
wealthiest Asians, besides being named the richest
Asian woman in London. According to a report
in The Independent, that puts Sharma at number
nine in a top 10 of Asian entrepreneurs in London,
and 21st nationally, alongside such billionaires
as steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal (13.5 billion
pounds) and the Hinduja brothers who have made
a 2.1 billion pound fortune, mainly from oil.
Sharma, a first-generation immigrant from Punjab
and a mother of two teenage daughters, said
she was impatient for success early in life.
"I was disillusioned and had a determination
to make something work by myself. I was a great
Thatcherite and I believed every word she said
when she talked about businesses springing from
your own backyard. I found a serviced office
in Oxford Street that was about the size of
a broom cupboard, and the other thing I had
was contacts and the conviction that I could
make money out of airline tickets for left-turners
[industry-speak for first-class airline travellers],"
the paper quotes Sharma, as saying.
She further went on to say that she was inspired
by her father, a clothes manufacturer who supplied
C and A, and her brother Raj, who recently sold
his travel business to lastminute.com. Sharma's
husband, Rahul, 46, swapped his job with an
accountancy firm to become her finance director,
and the company now is preparing for floatation
within three years. (ANI)
NRI is richest Asian woman in UK
Posted online: Monday, March 28, 2005 at 0045
hours IST
LONDON, MARCH 27: Non-resident Indian Rita Sharma
has emerged as the richest Asian woman in London
with a wealth of £95 million, 20 years after
she set up her own small travel business.
Along with her husband Rahul, the 44-year old
Ms Sharma is also part of the 21st richest Asian
couple in Britain. Although born in Punjab, she
was brought to this country as a baby and grew
up in the suburbs of Ilford. Her father manufactured
womens garments for C&A and her mother
was a housewife.
According to the Asian rich list, the family
were not poor.I saw my parents work all
the hours God gave and they just had enough for
food and the basics of life. There was never room
for extras. I never wanted to end up like them.
PTI
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