Ajit Hutheesing

Ajit Gunottam Hutheesing (4 March 1936 – 8 December 2017) was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of International Capital Partners Inc. (ICP). ICP commenced investment activities in 1992, providing private placement equity to finance the growth of successful smaller companies. After a successful record of investments in small private and public companies, ICP began winding down its activities. Hutheesing was a member of the Greenwich Roundtable, a group of 100 invited members who collectively manage $1 trillion plus.

Early life and education Hutheesing was an Indian American. He was born in Mumbai, India into the prominent Hutheesing family. His mother, Krishna, a well-known author, was the sister of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. His father, Gunottam Hutheesing, was part of one of the larger industrial families in India, the Lalbhai Group; he served India as a politician, journalist and businessman.

Hutheesing was educated at the Scindia School in Gwalior and later at the St. Mary's School in Mumbai, before he attended the Cambridge University in England where he received his bachelor's degree in chemistry, physics, metallurgy and mathematics and a master's degree in chemical engineering. He received his MBA from Columbia Business School in New York.

Career Hutheesing was one of the first Indians in Wall Street when he started his investment banking career in 1960 with Loeb, Rhoades & Co. In 1962, he joined S.G. Warburg & Company in London as part of his investment banking training. He returned to India in 1963 to start the first investment bank but when his cousin, Indira Gandhi, became Prime Minister and started nationalising banks and insurance companies, he decided to leave India. to start ICP.

During his life, Hutheesing was committed to using his connections in and knowledge of India and the United States to build both philanthropic and business bridges between these countries. On the investment front, his interest was to bring private equity capital to India from the United States and to eventually channel capital from high-net-worth families in India to the United States.

Personal life

Hutheesing married Amrita Nigam in 1960 in London. They had three children together: sons Nikhil, Vivek and Ravi.

In 1996, Hutheesing married Helen Armstrong, a violinist. Armstrong was the founder and artistic director of Armstrong Chamber Concerts in Washington, Connecticut, and a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, from which she also received a master's degree. In her memory Hutheesing wrote the memoir The Shadow of Her Smile. Hutheesing was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, before he died on 8 December 2017, aged 81.