SWRAJ PAUL BUYS £6 MILLION ESTATE NEAR CHEQUERS
Indo-Asian News Service, London, 9 September 2007 (IANS)

Prominent NRI business magnate Lord Swraj Paul has bought a £6 million estate in Britain, just minutes away from Chequers, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official rural retreat. The acquisition of the Georgian mansion and 250-acre farm near Beaconsfield will give Lord Paul easy access to Brown, who uses Chequers for weekends with his family.

Lord Paul, whose fortune is estimated at £450 million, funded Brown's private office in opposition and had pledged to "give whatever he can afford" to help ensure Labour is re-elected. He was knighted by the Queen in 1978. In 1996, he became a life peer, a member of the House of Lords, taking the title Baron Paul of Marylebone in the City of Westminster.

The estate was previously owned by Conservative supporter George Apter. And before that, it was the home of former Chelsea Football Club boss Ken Bates, who set up an ice cream factory on the estate. "It is quite a small place," Lord Paul was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. "I am still waiting for the furniture. I have only one sofa, which I bought in a hurry," he told the paper. "Gordon Brown has not been here. He would be far too busy.

"This is a place where I can relax with my four children and seven grandchildren," he said. Lord Paul said he enjoys the gentle walks from the gates of the new estate along the mile-long drive to his front door and picking blackberries with his grandchildren. "I like it here because it is so quiet," he said.

Lord Paul has been a regular Labour donor over the past decade and most recently gave £25,000 to Brown's personal leadership campaign.

Lord Paul was born in Jalandhar, Punjab, in 1931. He was educated at the Punjab University and later obtained a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. Lord Paul started his business in Britain in 1968. After acquiring one steel unit, he went on to acquire more units and founded the Caparo group in 1978. Caparo is now one of the leading producers of welded steel tubes and spiral-welded pipes in Britain.