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Purpose is the reason you journey,
Passion is the fire that lights your way.
Passion drives one insane… it is passion that leads Rakesh Gujral to find the elusive
treasure hidden beneath the wreck of archives and testimonies, making him the first
and most probably, the only Asset Hunter in India. Here he talks of his journey
to Ashitaa.
Asset Hunter… Seeks Beneficiaries

2. SEP 2014 KENS CONNECT
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SEP 2014 KENS CONNECT
The term Asset Hunter tickles
your mind, urging the desire to
know more. And this is what
happened when I heard of Mr
Rakesh Gujral aka Cokes. And I
just wanted to know more.
Remarkably, the initiation into
this wonderful journey for
Rakesh began in Nepal. An
investor by profession, he paid a
visit to his friends in Kathmandu
(Nepal) way back in 1997. A
pile of annual reports of some
Indian Companies, lying as junk,
fascinated Cokes and drew him
into the world of Documents
and records. The reports seemed
to suggest that assorted Nepalese
had stake in Indian companies
in the form of shares and
investments. Now the question
was – did these companies exist;
and if yes, were the investments
still there? The search had to be
manual, the era being pre Google
and pre widespread internet.
There was no data available if
the company was merged with
another one or renamed itself or
gone under. It had to be a dig and
dig and dig ops…
The manual search brought him
to the Registrar of Company
Offices of different states. He
searched records of almost each
old company which had filed its
records with RoC - you name it
and he has inhaled the dust &
grime of every record available
within the premises of related
offices and companies. Three
years of search ops and legal
procedures later, the family got
the monies... leading many others
in Nepal to approach him for
similar matter, with similar old
records.
Sipping green tea- which seems
to go on unendingly with him,
he stated: “While today there are
around 12000 companies regis-
tered with Registrar of Compa-
nies (Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai,
Bangalore, Cochin, Hyderabad
and various more), only 1100
were established before 1960s.
And I targeted only those. Al-
though initially I was looking
only for Nepalese names but
few more Non-Indian, Non Ne-
pali names caught my attention.
There were Sri Lankans, South
Africans, Burmese and British
who had investments in India and
such investments still lie with In-
dian companies unattended and
unclaimed”
The passage of his cruise
now shifted from “Company
via People” to “People via
company”.
In his hunt, Cokes came across
the names of members of royal
A total of 5,400 share certificates
worth Rs 5,40,000 of The Howrah
Shrakhalla Light Railway Company
Limited issued to Sir T C Mowden,
Hyderabad dated 2nd April 1900.
Foreign nationals did buy shares in In-
dian companies. Image of original share
certificates of many such companies.
During the pre-independence era,
British were presiding all over
the Business, Administration
and also Polity. The Managing
Agency houses like Martin Burn
& Co, Jardine Henderson, Bird
& Co, Andrew Yule & Co,
Mcleod & Co, Duncan Brothers
etc. had the `Gora’ all over the
place. They owned and managed
Tea estates, Railways, Airlines,
Power Utilities, Coal, Jute,
Cotton Textile etc. Their belief of
coming back, as they left, did not
materialise. And the investments
ended up ‘forgotten & unclaimed’
with the Indian companies. The
intrusiveness and love for old
archives made Cokes hunt for the
legitimate heir of these assets, that
he had stumbled into.

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Share certificates of The East Indian
Coal Company Limited and Durbhanga
Suger Company Limited Issued in 1909
and 1943 respectively.
family of Ranas, Jung Thapas,
Panths, and several more from
England and America having
investments in industries like jute,
tea, cotton & engineering sectors,
and many more.
The hunt just does not end at
unearthing the lost assets; I offer
them a complete package, from
obtaining the legal representation
from the courts to transfer of
assets to their names and sale of
the assets and remittance through
banking channel. Many a times,
such offers are not very appealing
to the beneficiaries - it is more
difficult to persuade the family
clan to get proper documents and
facilitate the legal procedures to
claim the same. Certain Country
policies and Personal or Religious
beliefs also prove to be a hindrance.
At times, it takes years for a
family to respond back with the
documents and then, the family
expects a fairy with magic wand to
bring their assets to them in blink
of a moment. “Unfortunately, that
does not happen in our world”
Cokes muttered.
In 2005-2006, family researchers
from UK got associated with
Cokes and aided in finding people’s
legitimate heir for the assets,
initiating a new journey.
“Few people do send random
mails asking to find about their
ancestors assets without having
any knowledge or documentation
to support that. That irks me.” said
the unruffled guy sitting in front
of me, still with a mug of green
tea.
‘GRAVEYARD TOURISM’
WhenitcametotalkingaboutGraveyard
Tourism, the area of my true interest -
which had actually embedded this guy in
my mind, Cokes was reticent. Lot of
digging and coercing gave me a sketchy
idea of all it entails…
Many foreigners want to trace their
relatives, who died and were cremated in
India pre-independence. The records are
non-existent and details are meagre, yet
the urge to trace one’s roots does dictate.
“It is a huge challenge as we don’t have
any data base with records of the graves
as can be found in UK and US. And
initially, it was horrifying to know that
over a period of time, the same grave can
be used to bury someone else”.
But does his passion support his
livelihood?
“If you are rich you never calculate
and I never calculate” concluded
the Asset Hunter, “as it is, money
cannot compensate for what I
achieve.”
Website: www.fundtracers.com
Blog: http://fundtracers.blogspot.
com/