ABOUT ME

Subhash Vithaldas Thakrar is a professional chartered accountant of over 35 years of experience, an international business man and actively involved in the voluntary and charity sector.

He is the past Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which is one of the U.K.'s prominent business and trade public bodies established over 130 years ago and represents London's SME sector of businesses as well as larger corporations with headquarters in London.

Subhash founded the Asian Business Association (ABA) of U.K., which is part of the London Chamber back in 1995. This was a pioneering and original initiative to enable London's Asian Businesses to get in to the mainstream of business organizations of the U.K. The ABA has become a powerful influencing body in the U.K.'s business environment. He was the Chairman of ABA during 2001 to 2004 succeeding the first Chairman, late Lord Gulam Noon.

He is a qualified chartered accountant and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. After training and qualifying with Spicer and Pegler (now part of Deloitte), he joined and became the first Asian partner with Blackstone Franks in 1983. Blackstone Franks has been a leading accounting firm in the City of London with strong capabilities of taxation, corporate finance and through its regulated company, Blackstone Moregate Ltd, providing wealth management services.

Subhash was the managing partner of Blackstone Franks LLP when in 2013 he negotiated a merger with CBW, another well-established firm of Chartered Accountants in London. The trading name of Blackstone Franks LLP became CBW Blackstone Franks.

Today the combined firms operate as CBW. CBW is a full service top 50 tax, accounting and business advisory firm in the UK. The firm has excellent capabilities in meeting the needs of businesses, from basic accounting work and auditing, to specialist services including: taxation, corporate finance, forensic accounting, financial planning, corporate recovery and insolvency. Subhash was formally a partner at CBW and will now continue his links with the firm as a consultant, from 1 July 2016.

During the early 90s, Subhash saw the potential of the growth prospects and transformation of India's economy. The spectacular growth of Indian economy in subsequent years has become evident. He has been extensively involved in India in business and investment activity for the best part of 20 years, when he spent regular time shuttling between the U.K. and India. He started his activity in India by promoting an Indian Equity Fund called India Value Investments Ltd (INVIL). This is a Mauritius based fund investing in listed Indian securities and enjoyed an excellent performance outperforming the Indian indices by a large margin. INVIL is one of the oldest Indian funds outside India (1996).

Subhash founded ICS Infrastructure Ltd in India with local Indian partners in the mid 90s and with this vehicle pioneered new international joint ventures to exploit the potential of the 'sunrise' industries in India. These included carrying out some of the leading infrastructure projects in the new market of toll road projects jointly with Intertoll (subsidiary of Group Five Ltd) of South Africa. ICS was also involved in establishing joint ventures with Old Mutual of South Africa to provide professional real estate services (Pioneer Property Zone or PPZ), an architecture practice with Bentel of South Africa called Bental Associates to provide creative commercial architectural services in India and parking consultancy and management with Australian Group Secure Parking. Recognizing the constraints of managing a U.K. accounting practice, the involvement with the London Chamber and the joint ventures, he decided to divest from his interest in ICS Group in 2010.

In 2008, Subhash promoted Triangle Real Estate India Fund jointly with Old Mutual of South Africa. The fund is listed on the Mauritius Stock Exchange and is managed by an asset management company called Triangle Real Estate India Fund Managers Ltd, Mauritius of which Subhash is a founding director. The fund is active in investing in the retail sector of Indian real estate such as shopping malls.

Subhash actively continues with his interests in India with INVIL and Triangle funds as well as special projects ranging from assisting British Universities to establish in India as well as guiding a leading Chinese EPC contractor to participate in the fast growing infrastructure opportunities that are emerging in India.

Subhash is the founder of Charity Clarity, an independent rating body that provides rating and guidance to charities. He sits on the board of Let Britain Fly, a corporate lobby group to push the U.K. Government to increase London's capacity. He is a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He believes that certain economies of Sub Saharan Africa are emerging as new economies of the world and these are where the Indian economy was back in mid 1990s. Similar growth and development like India is possible and new opportunities are arising. Currently, Subhash has family business interests in Uganda in the FMCG and electronics sectors as well as education. There are other similar projects in the pipeline with other fast emerging African economies.

Subhash invests in consortiums of residential real estate developments in London. Subhash has served in several organizations in the voluntary sector including OFWAT, the Thames Region Water Regulator , Attlee Foundation, a charity set up to assist children in less developed parts of London following former Prime Minister Clement Attlee's objectives, Commonwealth Education Fund along with the late Governor of Bank of England, late Lord George, Docklands sailing project to support deprived children learn sailing, Fund raising for children's ward at Northwick Park hospital, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Festival of Spiritual Unity, U.K. launch of Pratham, a charity in India to educate slum children and 3R's Trust Ltd to help educate children in remote parts of Nepal and Jaspar Centre to provide comfortable day time centre in Harrow for the elderly.

Subhash is the founder Chairman of Charity Clarity (www.charityclarity.org), an independent rating agency for UK based charities. This is the only body in the UK that provides such a service and has the objectives to highlight well governed charities with higher ratings and also help lift the low scoring poorly run charities with a dedicated consultancy service.

He has also sat on the Small Business panel of Bank of England, promoting the Disraeli business club, steering committee of World Hindu Economic Forum, a worldwide business organization connecting Hindu business people for wealth creation in the World.

He led various trade missions to promote U.K. businesses to East Africa, West Africa and India. He has also been invited to join the trade missions of Prime Minister Blair, Prime Minister Cameron and Mayor Boris Johnson to India.

He has been invited to speak at various platforms including CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government) in Uganda, World Hindu Economic Forum, Launch of Choice International, charity for disabled in India, Vibrant Gujarat business forum launched by Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat, the World Forum for Ethics in Business at the European Parliament and numerous events of the Asian Business Association and London Chamber of Commerce.

Subhash is co-author to 4 business books and chairman to the editorial board that produced an official book recording Prime Minister Modi's visit to the U.K. in 2015.

In his free time, Subhash enjoys cycling and golf. He has raised funds for various charities by cycling long distance in Sri Lanka, London to Paris, London to Brighton etc.

Subhash is a regular practitioner of yoga and devout reader of the Gita. His pet subject is history of the Lohana community that he belongs to,  where is involved with commissioning a detailed research project with a view to producing a reliable and authentic historical record.

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