Anthony Paul Bamford, The Lord Bamford, DL , the 69-year-old chairman of JCB Ltd , set up his company’s first overseas plant in India in 1979, which he sees as an inspired decision; few companies would have contemplated setting up a business in India back then.

Today, JCB is a generic name for earth-moving equipment in India, in the same way that Xerox is associated with photocopying and Unilever Plc’s Surf is synonymous with detergents. Last week, Bamford announced investment of ₹ 500 crore to set up a manufacturing facility in Jaipur, the firm’s fourth in India. Bamford believes Prime Minister Narendra Modi could do to India what Margaret Thatcher did to England. In an interview, he spoke about creating an environment where a family business can be run comfortably by professionals and reasons for not diversifying his company’s business. He spoke about ease of doing business in India and why he never complains about the country. Edited excerpts:

When did you first come to India? Which year was it?

I think it was 1966 when I was 21. I had a backpack and long hair. I travelled around your country then and I have been coming back ever since. That visit had nothing to with business. I was a young man and had just joined my father in his business. We never thought of having a business in India at all. We had a tiny business in the UK.

What prompted you to start doing business here?

We started in India with a partnership with the Nanda family of Escorts Ltd (Editor’s Note: Both partners parted ways in 2002 when JCB bought out the New Delhi-based company’s stake in the joint venture for an undisclosed sum).

We started because there was a particular man, who worked for us in England who had been in India just at the start of the war and kept telling me you should do business in India. I met the Nanda family, Hari Nanda, father of Rajan Nanda and we started it (a joint venture). It was a very slow beginning. Escorts made tractors and were principally in farming business and (later) they branched out in all sort of things.

But, you never complained about India, the system out here.

Every country has differences. What is to complain about? Your country is a wonderful country, and I certainly see more positives than I see negatives. If you look at how difficult was it to do business in the early 1970s in India when everything was licensed or rationed...now your country is very modern and you have a bureaucracy and that is starting to be energized. I get that feeling. You have got Mr. Modi who works so many hours a day. You have got a very, very active prime minister. A person makes a difference. My country, Great Britain, was transformed by a woman—Mrs. Thatcher. She transformed it. Of course, she had a lot of good people with her but it was her will that did it. So, a person can make a lot of difference and you have got a very positive man running your country.

Did you find out a way to get work done here or did you simply accept the way things happen here?

To be honest, we believe in your country. Come what may, we believe in India. As for red tape, every country in the world has red tape. I have never complained about India and I would not because the pluses are much more than the minuses. People smile in India. They are not miserable. That’s what I find very attractive.

As a businessman, why have you not diversified JCB?

We have not. You are right. We are in engineering, construction machinery, agriculture machinery and industrial machinery. We have over 300 basic products and they go on from $2,000 to a million dollars. So, it’s a big spread of products. We haven’t gone into other things. We are not a public company. I haven’t thought (about) the need to diversify. If you are a public company, your quarterly figures are highly important and you have to keep showing an increase, and if not, you get damned. One of the ways to do that is by buying counter (cyclical) businesses, which have got different cycles (than your own) and it is not what we want to do.

But, you did express your interest in buying Jaguar in 2006.

Yes, that was a very long time ago. It’s a good British company, which is owned by an Indian (company) now. It has done very well since; particularly Land Rover has done extremely well. Jaguar is doing well but I think the Tatas have made a fortune by buying Jaguar and Land Rover and I applaud them for that. I think it is a tremendous business decision.

So, was it just out of loyalty to British brands that you wanted to buy Jaguar or did it reflect an attempt to diversify?

In our industry, there are either big people or small people. There are not a lot of medium-sized people. Our sales range between four-and-a-half to $5 billion. There are three or four companies bigger than us. Volvo is slightly bigger than us and there is Komatsu and Caterpillar, which is the biggest.

Caterpillar, in construction machinery, is about $15 billion, three times our size. As a whole, they do $50 billion a year. All I mean is there are not many people to buy. Our model has not been about buying.

What you saw here today (last week in Rajasthan) is a direct investment with our own money with no baggage. There are no bad habits that we have picked up. We prefer to do that rather than buying another business. We don’t have to, being a private company. If we would’ve been a public company, we will have to because, what (else) are you going to do in a downside. If there is a downside, we carry on investing. We believe in our future.

You also seem to have exported talent out of India?

What you might find interesting is the president of our American company is an Indian and he is from Jaipur. He was the head of service and sales here in India. The head of our excavators business is an Indian from Pune and he is based in England. So, we promote from within. Not always, but if we can. Your management in India is of the highest order. We have a wonderful team here. The only expats are particular experts on their subjects, and they are not in control of any operations.

How do you strike a balance in a business run by professionals but controlled by the family?

We have an executive (body) which meets every week and it has some overseas members like Vipin (Sondhi, managing director, JCB India), and we have monthly meetings as well and I am very rarely there. I am active in daily business somewhat but honestly, it is run by professional people, who are not there because of nepotism.

The only nepotism in the business is myself and my 35-year-old son, who runs two of our businesses.

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