East India Company is wound up for a second time in London

TOI Correspondent from London: The first time the East India Company (EIC) was formally dissolved was in 1874, as result of the 1857 First War of Independence when Indian soldiers from the company revolted. It was effectively abolished in 1858 when its control of India was transferred to the British Raj operating from a new India Office in Whitehall and its forces became the British Indian Army. For a second time, the EIC in London, surprisingly revived by a Mumbai businessman, is being wound up. It has gone into voluntary liquidation owing £1 million.

Filings at Companies House show that it owes £611,279 (Rs 7.5 crore) to its parent company, the EIC Group, in the British Virgin Islands; £163,105 (Rs 2 crore) in wages to staff and £193,789 (Rs 2.4 crore) to the UK taxman. Its assets amount to just £60.39 (Rs 7,439.)

CEO Sanjiv Mahendra Mehta bought the rights and assets, such as the coat of arms, of the original EIC from a group of shareholders in 2005. In 2010, after investing £10 million, he turned it into a luxury lifestyle brand selling fine Asian foods, tea, chocolates, jewellery, coins and homeware — with an Eastern theme.

Born into a Gujarati Jain family in Mumbai, Mehta, now British, comes from a lineage of diamond traders. An alumnus of Sydenham College, Mumbai and IIM Ahmedabad, he moved to the UK in 1989. His vision was to once again turn the EIC into a global commercial venture trading from London. His company’s branding spoke of “retaining the pioneering spirit and merchant mindset that defined its formation”.

In 2010 the company opened its flagship store in Mayfair; this later moved to Bond Street. At the time Mehta had said: “I am Indian, so there is a huge feeling of redemption for me. It is buying back a company that owned India.” The store now lies empty, and the website has disappeared.

In 2023 Mehta launched an enormous collectible coin called “the Crown”, made of 3.6kg of gold and 6,426 diamonds, to mark the first anniversary of the Queen’s death.

Whilst the original EIC plundered India, this company has sunk owing money to the British.