Not Baba Ramdev, but Acharya Balkrishna owns 94% of Patanjali Ayurved (With video)

April 30, 2016, NewsCrunch

Patanjali Ayurved, India’s sensationally expanding FMCG concern, is closely associated with Baba Ramdev, but is nearly wholly owned by his aide Acharya Balkrishna.

Acharya Balkrishna, 43, owns 94% of Patanjali Ayurved and works as its Chairman and Managing Director. Three per cent  of the firm is owned by an NRI couple, Sunita and Sarwan Poddar, followers of Ramdev, who had loaned Balkrishna his initial capital to start the business.

Balkrishna told The Economic Times said there was no link between the Patanjali Yogpeeth trust under Ramdev  and Patanjali Ayurved, the FMCG company.

Ramdev had declared sometime ago that he manages four trusts Divya Yoga Mandir, Patanjali Yoga Peeth trust, Bharat Swabhiman trust and Acharyakul Shiksha Sansthan.

Balkrishna, has been a longtime loyal associate of Ramdev. Ramdev earned UPA’s ire after the Anna Hazare movement and multiple agencies started probing his businesses. It was Balakrishna who bore the brunt. He was slapped with several charges from money laundering to cheating and was even briefly jailed in a forged passport case.

ET says he has got a clean chit in the cases and moved on to turn Patanjali Ayurved into a Rs 5,000 crore corporate empire.

He reportedly uses an iPhone but no computer, is dressed in a traditional white kurta and dhoti, and speaks in pure Hindi.

He works for 15 hours a day and claims not have taken a single day's leave.

Under him, Balkrishna has moved into new categories without any market research and hit jackpots in many.

Balkrishna was born to Sumitra Devi and Jay Vallabh and received an Acharya degree in Varanasi. He met Ramdev at a gurukul in Haryana. Before setting up Patanjali Ayurved, he was at the helm of several businesses set up by Ramdev.

Video: A recent interview with Acharya Balkrishna