Nationality Seychelles Spouse(s) Jayalakshmi Organizations founded Aircel Religion Hindu Education Harvard University | Net worth bankrupt Name Chinnakannan Sivasankaran Website SIVA Group | |
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Born 29 July 1956 (age 67) ( 1956-07-29 ) Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India | ||
Occupation Chairman of Siva Group | ||
Chinnakannan Sivasankaran (born 1956, Chennai) is the Chairman of Siva Group, Siva Industries & Holdings and Siva Ventures. He was declared as bankrupt by Supreme Court of Seychelles in 2014.
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Early life
Sivasankaran was born in 1956 in Chennai, India. He started his career as a fabrication contractor for MRL (now Chennai Petroleum corporation), a business started by his father.
Ventures
Sivasankaran bought Sterling Computers from Robbert Amritraj, father of the Indian tennis star, Vijay Amritraj, in the 80s and selling computers at the lower prices, made it to the Indian newspapers as an innovative emerging businessman. He acquired telecom licenses for Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP (East) and Tamil Nadu in early 1990s and in 1997 launched Aircel based out of Chennai. Sivasankaran also has stakes in Aiwo (health food chain), WinWinD, S Tel and Siva Shipping (earlier Ugland Shipping).
Controversies
Sivasankaran sold his 74% stake in Aircel to Maxis Communications in 2006. Later, CBI allegedly found irregularities in the deal and charged former minister Dayanithi Maran for having forced Sivasankaran to sell all his stake to Maxis.
He is known to keep an extremely low public profile and has rarely given public interviews. He is known to live out of the most expensive presidential suites around the world and owns a large fleet of private planes and yachts. He is the ambassador-at-large for Seychelles, where he owns a seafront residence. On August 26, 2014, the Supreme Court of Seychelles declared him and the Siva Group insolvent following his application for bankruptcy protection to ward off a claim by his Bahrain-based telecom partner Batelco.