Lakshmi Mittal: Olympic flame could have gone on top of my Orbit

Lakshmi Mittal has had a busy Games, funding the Orbit tower as well as India’s Olympic team. He wants to leave a legacy, he tells James Ashton
6 August 2012

If only Lakshmi Mittal had had more time. The steel magnate, Britain’s richest man, has garnered more column inches from the world’s press for his opinion-dividing ArcelorMittal Orbit than many of the athletes at the Olympics.

But if the Indian entrepreneur had his way, the helter-skelter of scarlet steel that stands tall over the Olympic Park could have played an even more central role to the Games. Over lunch with Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, Mittal raised the prospect of the Olympic flame being taken out of the stadium and mounted on the Orbit so it could have been seen for miles around.

“He thought it would be a good idea, but it couldn’t be done in the time,” said Mittal. It’s a reminder that although Mittal was co-opted — some would say coerced — into London’s Olympic movement in a snatched conversation with London Mayor Boris Johnson, it didn’t take long for his enthusiasm to mushroom.

That now legendary chat with Johnson, in the cloakroom at Davos during the World Economic Forum where political leaders and corporate Titans gather every January, has led onto a broader dialogue. The Orbit is up and running, with plans to retain it as a tourist attraction after the athletes have gone home, but Mittal and Johnson — who lunched together at McDonald’s in the Olympic Park just last week — are mulling over another collaboration.

“We did discuss the next project,” Mittal admits with a wry smile.

“I still want to do more for east London. Boris and I discussed that: why don’t we do a couple of small projects and then we can try to raise funds to help the community?”

No more details are forthcoming, even though Mittal, with a fortune of £12.7 billion, is clearly in relaxed mood. Dressed down after lunch with a handful of business associates, he is sat in the conservatory of his sumptuous Kensington home. Bought for £57 million eight years ago from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, at the time it was the world’s most expensive house. Myths abound about this place. For example, where are the stones taken from the same quarry as the Taj Mahal that has earned it the nickname of the Taj Mittal?

“There are stones in the swimming pool area,” he says with a wave. “I tell you, I did not buy those, someone else did it. We bought the house with the stones already there.”

What is true is the walls are stacked with art and double doors lead out into the garden where water bubbles in an impressive fountain and a children’s playground stands, to occupy his grandchildren.

“It’s a home,” Mittal says, glancing around. “I love my house: it is very peaceful, relaxing. It has positive vibes; that is important.”

At close quarters, sipping an espresso, it is easy to forget that here is a billionaire whose ArcelorMittal steel empire stretches from Kazakhstan to Mexico and employs 260,000 staff. Instead of steely, he is contemplative, almost shy, with wide eyes beneath a floppy fringe.

On this form, it is hard to see how Mittal could have resisted Johnson’s plea to contribute towards an Olympic tower that would help to add a wow-factor to the east London Games. Those who know him from his business career have experienced a far harder edge.

What began as a pledge to donate 2,000 tonnes of steel quickly became an all-encompassing project that involved Mittal helping to single out Anish Kapoor’s design from a long list of ideas because it incorporated complex engineering principles. Before long, the budget was rising, as was the size of the structure. “It started as a very small project,” says Mittal, “30 metres, 40 metres in height. Not a big investment, not a big thing. But I also got carried away by the whole excitement. We finally froze at about 100 metres, 105 metres at one point, but while Cecil (Balmond, the engineer) was doing it he felt the height could go up to 115 metres. That required some extra investment, but we did agree.”

In the end, £10 million became £23 million, including £3 million of development money, and at the last minute, Mittal’s wife Usha insisted on mirrors being installed around the viewing deck at the top.

“It was going out of budget but she insisted,” he says with a shrug. It was these mirrors that the Queen gazed into when she visited the Orbit the day after “parachuting” into the park during the opening ceremony.

“I was very honoured she chose to visit the following day. When she walked in, she said, ‘It is yours’. And I said, ‘Your Majesty, it is ours’. She asked questions about the design, how much steel was used. I’ve got some amazing photos.”

Even though his firm is entertaining hundreds of guests at the Games, Mittal has spent time just standing outside waiting for visitors to descend in the lift so he can gauge their reaction.

“Some say it’s a great piece of art, some say it’s a great use of steel, some love the colour and the location. It is so prominent you can’t miss it.”

With such enthusiasm, it’s hard to begrudge Mittal his spot in the torch relay, which detractors say he shouldn’t have been invited to take part in just because the 62-year-old waved his chequebook around.

“I felt great,” he says, seemingly unconcerned by the criticism. “The whole family and friends got together and were cheering us.”

Mittal’s son, Aditya, 36, also had a turn — neatly illustrating how close family and business is for them. Mittal junior is finance director of ArcelorMittal and played a key role in the 2006 takeover of Arcelor that created an industrial giant. It was the first firm in the world to produce 100 million tonnes of steel in a year, the culmination of an opportunity Mittal spied decades before to consolidate a localised, fragmented industry and rip out costs. Meanwhile, his daughter Vanisha — whose 2004 wedding to investment banker Amit Bhatia was a lavish affair — is head of strategy at Aperum, the family’s stainless steel business.

Mittal, named after the Hindu goddess of wealth, also started out in his father’s firm, joining at the age of 19, although life was nearly very different. Born in the desert north of India to a home with no electricity, he was sent by his father to study at St Xavier’s College in Calcutta.

“When I finished my graduation, my principal wanted me to be a professor,” he says. “I was top in university in my course and he wanted me to teach accountancy. The classes were very early morning so I declined the opportunity.”

It didn’t take Mittal long to forsake the lie-ins. By his mid-twenties he’d set up a steel plant in Indonesia that his father had been unsure of. He developed a taste for globe-trotting, splitting the family business that left him with the international arm, and with his father and brothers left to concentrate on India. What if his son wanted to break away from the family firm, just as he did?

“First of all I don’t think he would like to do it but everyone should be given freedom to do whatever they want. My father did not hold me; I cannot hold my son or daughter. But I believe he will stay: as far as I know today, he would like to continue to grow with the organisation.” The Orbit isn’t Mittal’s only Olympic link. Besides attending the swimming and gymnastics last week, he has bankrolled the Indian Olympic team since witnessing its poor medal haul in Athens in 2004. In London, a lonely bronze in the shooting has been his only payback so far.

“I am very disappointed,” he concedes. “Our two key participants have lost and both of them were expected to get something.” But it doesn’t mean he will give up the backing, which has cost him £8 million so far.

“We are not only encouraging individual athletes, but I think we will also inspire Indian corporates to do much more — not only to engage themselves in one sports event that is cricket.”

Mittal is often likened to Andrew Carnegie, the Scot who built a vast steel empire in 19th-century America.

He lists the family’s other philanthropic efforts: “My son and his wife are engaged with Great Ormond Street Hospital. My wife has just built a pavilion in the Serpentine Gallery designed by Ai Weiwei.”

But he’s not about to give away the fortune he’s built just like Carnegie, is he? “I’ve not built yet,” he says with a low laugh. “I’m still in the process of building.” Despite his best efforts, maybe that means Boris will have to wait a little longer for that next donation.

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