Adar Poonawalla, CEO, Serum Institute of India (SII), started collecting art two decades ago
On February 5, AstaGuru announced that Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII) and an art connoisseur, had bought a 20 percent stake in the online auction house. Poonawalla and AstaGuru declined to reveal the amount of investment, or the total valuation of the auction house. However, Forbes India did manage to get a sense of how this investment will influence AstaGuru’s future, and how that is linked to the new investor’s past.
In an exclusive interview, Poonawalla says he has been passionate about art since childhood, growing up in an environment where art was a significant part of his family’s life. “My family has been collecting art for several years, which naturally nurtured my appreciation for it. Personally, I started collecting art two decades ago and have been an avid enthusiast ever since,” he says.
Poonawalla’s collection includes several works of Indian artists such as SH Raza, MF Husain, Jehangir Sabavala, Raja Ravi Verma and Amrita Sher-Gil. “Their works happen to be some of my favourites,” he says. The international artworks in his collection include Marc Chagall, van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rembrandt and Pablo Picasso.
Explaining his thinking behind this investment, Poonawalla says, “The Indian art market still lacks widespread infrastructural awareness and appreciation across different geographies. Currently, interest in Indian art is concentrated within a niche audience. However, as the market continues to evolve and expand, so will the business opportunities in this sector.”
He adds that AstaGuru has successfully scaled its presence in the art market and significantly grown its market share over the years. “I have closely followed the auction house since its inception, having acquired several artworks through them, and have maintained a long-standing relationship,” he says. Poonawalla’s involvement in the company will primarily be from a strategic perspective, helping shape its future.
Tushar Sethi, CEO of AstaGuru, reveals that Poonawalla is a childhood friend and has been a long-time patron of the company. “This investment paves the way for the expansion of AstaGuru’s presence in local and international markets over the next few years through various verticals and categories,” says Sethi. “It will help nurture an ecosystem that functions from a research-driven approach enabled through artificial intelligence [AI] to accentuate user experience.”
Poonawalla—his father Cyrus Poonawalla is the chairman and managing director of SII and ranks 7th on Forbes India’s list of richest Indians with a net worth of $19.4 billion—has diversified his investments in recent years into sectors including financial services, real estate, packaging, insurance, NBFCs, clean energy and entertainment. Last October, Poonawalla-led Serene Productions announced an investment of ₹1,000 crore in filmmaker Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and Dharmatic Entertainment for a 50 percent stake. With Dharma, he has plans to launch verticals such as music labels and distribution, and not just focus on filmmaking, he has said earlier.
Through the strategic partnership with AstaGuru, Sethi says, the auction house intends to generate awareness and appreciation for Indian art on a global platform. “The aim of this partnership is to transform the luxury auction industry and strengthen the dedication to create lasting legacies for collectors and artists while delivering enduring value to stakeholders,” he says.
Speaking to the media while at Davos this January, Poonawalla said that since the Covid-19 pandemic, SII had invested $2 billion in capital expenditure, research, and clinical trials, and built facilities for vaccine production. The company, he said, was on the verge of licensing several vaccines, including those for HPV, malaria, chikungunya, monkey pox, dengue, and yellow fever.
