A Man’s Safari through darkness

What happens when two parallel journeys through darkness converge? Will they find light or spiral into greater darkness? Safari was a failing brand searching for a dynamic leader and Sudhir Jatia was a leader facing a professional crisis. This is a tale of their Safari.  

ACT 1 – An Unknown Safari in VIP’s world

Imagine the 80s, people travelling mostly in buses and trains, the time of Chetak scooters for the middle class while Ambassador, Fiats and Premier Padmini cars ferried the rich. Indians were just beginning to migrate from rural to urban and travel meant trudging along with huge iron or steel trunks. Plastic had arrived, revolutionising and disrupting entire markets. The Piramal family decided the time was right to expand their plastic luggage business. VIP captured the imagination of the market and soon VIP Luggage was the undisputed market leader (70% to 80% of market share), providing durable, trendy and innovative products.

Safari and Aristocrat were contemporary companies operating in the same luggage space but providing mass-market, value-oriented luggage. Aristocrat was vying for the No 2 spot – competing aggressively on price point. Safari positioned itself as a value-oriented brand focusing on institutional and army canteen sales (CSD sales). Safari, unfortunately, did not have the scale or access of VIP. While the company had good products and operational ability, it failed to capture the retail markets due to the absence of aggressive brand building. Taking on a market giant like VIP or even an emerging Aristocrat needed bold strategic initiative. In the 2000s the brand began to fade from public memory and by 2011, the revenue of Safari was just Rs 72 crores -when VIP and Aristocrat clocked their best ever revenue of Rs 758 crore. Safari had become so insignificant that nobody noticed it fading into oblivion. Adding to the crisis, the Safari founding family was going through medical issues, forcing them to sell their company. They only had one condition - a worthy successor, someone who could take Safari to the heights they only dreamed of but couldn’t.

ACT 2 – A Rising Sun in VIP’s world

In 1991, Sudhir Jatia, then a 21-year-old, started working in Aristocrat. Aristocrat was a failing luggage company – struggling to find a foot hold in a market dominated by VIP. In 1988, Jatia’s father and Dilip Piramal, the CMD of VIP Luggage bought Aristocrat. Sudhir walked into Aristocrat because of a conflict of interest – Piramal owned 100% of VIP and only 50% of Aristocrat. Both companies competed in the same luggage space and the Jatias wanted to protect their investment.

Sudhir came from a textile business legacy and had hands on experience in everything from debt collection, petty cash vouching to operations. He quickly climbed his way up to Executive Director position. His first big challenge came during the Y2K when Aristocrat nearly filed for bankruptcy. Sudhir steered Aristocrat to overcome the darkness of bankruptcy and make the company profitable again. Sudhir was not merely an heir protecting his business interests – he was the man who gave Aristocrat a new lease of life.

In 2003, he was asked to join VIP by Piramal. His position was cemented when Aristocrat merged with VIP in 2008 and he was made the Managing Director of the merged company. Unfortunately, 2008 was the worst year in VIP’s history. It recorded its first ever operational loss in 50 years and the market was in chaos. Sudhir’s eclipse had arrived at sunrise. Overseas investment in pounds affected by the forex crash, merger-integration issues, cheap Chinese luggage flooding the market combined with financial meltdown of 2008 – enough to cast a shadow on his light. Sudhir strategically fought the darkness of 2008 by working on multi-brand portfolio repositioning, overhead tightening and smoothening the hiccups in the integration process. The result - VIP posted the highest ever profit in 2009-10.

And then came his sudden exit from VIP. Without warning, the Sun had disappeared completely into darkness. It was the beginning of a total eclipse.  

ACT 3 –Finding alignment

Between 2010 and 2012, Sudhir pursued an OPM program at Harvard where he understood the value of alignment – working with people whose value system aligns with yours. He understood that absence of alignment leads to tug of war – being pulled in different directions instead of marching ahead in the same direction. One of the directors of Safari found Sudhir and proposed he should turn around Safari by buying it.

Sudhir recalled a chance encounter with Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in 2011. Mr Jhunjhunwala’s advice– buy low and sell high – resonated with Sudhir. Of course, Mr Jhunjhunwala had given this advice on navigating the stock market but Sudhir took this and added his own spin to it – he bought majority stake (55% from the promoters and 22% from open market – 77% for 41 crore) in Safari by selling all his shares in VIP. The eclipse had just produced its “diamond ring”.

It was this principle of alignment that shaped every hire, every vendor relationship and every investor he brought into Safari. He was not just building a business — he was building an ecosystem of aligned interests.

ACT 4 – From darkness to light

Sudhir’s first goal – to become relevant in the market without incurring losses. His logic was simple - at 15% market share, you are difficult to kill. This was a challenging task for Safari which was at 2%. Sudhir’s first act was to shut down the after-sales repair services. He instead offered to replace any bag damaged within warranty period with a new bag. Simultaneously, he worked on improving the quality of the bags. He kept a tight leash on costs but ensured that quality never suffered. He moved to an asset light manufacturing model – working with vendors in China to save on capex costs. He imported shells and components for hard luggage and lower-value segments. Capex was utilised to produce high-margin hard luggage. Next step was to improve the distribution network – he first focused on hypermarkets – a space largely unexplored by luggage companies. He acted fast and tied up with hypermarkets from 2013. He spent aggressively on shelf space and marketing and as a result, dominated the hypermarket channels - effectively preventing his competitors from dominating this space. Next step was to establish dominance in the e-commerce channel. He followed the same strategy as earlier – approached before his competitors and established dominance before competitors could even arrive. He finally targeted retail stores and brand outlets, by this time Safari had captured double digit market share (by 2019).

Covid Lockdown: The world, for the first time in living history, shut down. Safari had Rs 80 crore debt while its competitors VIP and Samsonite were cash rich. With an indefinite lockdown, travel bans in place, Sudhir knew that capital management would be the deciding factor. Darkness had arrived and a man, who had been primed by experience to battle darkness, was ready. He made three decisions, during that period, that defined his character — there would be no firing or salary cuts, he would provide Covid vaccination and hospitalisation free to all employees, and he would honour every vendor order in China, renegotiating timelines rather than cancelling outright. He and his board voluntarily took a 100% pay cut during the lockdown. While these were honourable and bought emotional commitment from all his stakeholders, Safari required capital to fund salaries, operations, vendor payments, interest payments and other fixed expenses while revenue continued to fall.

Sudhir mortgaged his house, sold his Audi, and pooled all his savings to raise Rs 10 crore. Sudhir’s alignment mantra came to his rescue –his directors too pitched in with Rs 40 crore. This capital would keep the business running for 10 months. The future looked bleak after that. Sudhir says that this was one of the darkest phases of his life.

Fortunately, in March 2021, he found a new investor, InvestCorp, to supplement his capital. He began stockpiling his inventory, hiring talent who had been fired during covid, and even went on to lease a retail outlet in Delhi Terminal 3. He was again implementing his financial mantra – buy low. When the lockdown lifted and demand spiked, Sudhir was ready to hit the market running – with inventory, supply chain, vendors and talented and committed employees – all running in full gear. The aligned ecosystem was ready to bring in the rewards. The Sun was not just shining but blazing and the numbers tell you this story.

	FY 20	FY 21	FY 22	FY 23
Revenue	686 crore	328 crore	705 crore	1212 crore
Net Profit/ (loss)	31 crore	(21 crore)	22 crore	125 crore
Inventory days	155	223	123	144
Debtor days	78	101	59	51
Working capital days	88	136	72	65

As of March 2, 2026, the market cap of Safari is Rs 8357 crore whereas the market cap of VIP is Rs 5073 crore.

My Take:

The valuation journey of Safari from a 60-crore enterprise to approx Rs 9000 crore empire is no accident. It is the result of the eclipses that Sudhir Jatia faced in his professional journey. Sudhir had a proven track record of turning around failing businesses – Aristocrat and Safari and VIP (briefly in 2008). But Safari is where Sudhir brought in alignment. Safari was shaped around his value systems -strong business acumen coupled with premium on human connections. He did not sacrifice his goodwill at the altar of profitability. I get the sense that he is on a personal mission to prove that business acumen can co-exist with a deep respect for people. To call this a revenge story would be shallow, a disservice to Sudhir. He has been quietly teaching us lessons in alignment.

Which part of Sudhir’s journey resonated with you? What do you think would have happened if VIP and Samsonite had spent their cash in building inventory during Covid – would Sudhir’s all-in approach have backfired?

This article is part of An Accountant Writes, Vol 1, Issue 3 — March 2026. Read the full issue