Ajit Hutheesing

Ajit G. Hutheesing is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of International Capital Partners Inc.cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E4DD163DF937A15752C1A960958260|title= Ajit Hutheesing, Helen E. Armstrong|date=1996-11-24|accessdate=2008-06-17] (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 is winding down its activities. Mr. Hutheesing was a member of the Greenwich Roundtable, a group of 100 invited members who collectively manage $1 Trillion plus.

Mr. Hutheesing is an American of Indian origin. He was born in Mumbai, India into a very well known family. His mother, a well-known author, was the sister of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The Nehru family not only led the successful struggle for the freedom of India, but its leadership role over the past 50 years involving two other Prime Minsters, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, is legendary in India and around the world. His father was part of one of the larger industrial families in India, the Lalbhai Group; he served India as a politician, journalist and businessman.

Ajit was one of the first Indians in Wall Street when he started his investment banking career in 1960 with Loeb Rhoades & Company. 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 nationalizing banks and insurance companies, he decided to leave India. Following the advice and introduction of Sir Siegmund Warburg, Chairman of S.G. Warburg & Company, he joined the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment banking arm of the World Bank in 1965. He spent 10 years at IFC during most of which he headed IFC’s investment activities in the southern cone countries of South America. In 1972 he became the youngest director of IFC (at that time) heading the department responsible for management, syndications and dispositions of its rapidly growing equity and loan portfolios representing over 200 investments worldwide and valued in 1975 at $900 million.

In 1975, at the invitation of an old friend, Mr. James D. Wolfensohn, then President and CEO of Schroders USA (ex-President of the World Bank), Ajit joined J. Henry Schroder Corporation (JHSC), New York, as its Managing Director and as Director of Schroder International. JHSC was the investment banking arm of Schroders PLC in the U.S. Its main activities were M&A, private placements and managing a venture capital pool. Ajit spent considerable time in Brazil developing business for Schroders. He was named Vice Chairman of J. Henry Schroder Corporation in 1982. He joined The Sherwood Group, New York, in 1986 as Chairman to help the company raise substantial new capital and to build its corporate finance capabilities. Sherwood (later National Discount Brokers bought by Deutsch Bank) was one of the major wholesale market makers in the over-the-counter market and an underwriter and distributor of securities to the retail sector of the investment industry. While at Sherwood, Ajit was the only non-American Chairman of a Wall Street investment banking and securities trading company. Upon the death of the founder and majority shareholder, Ajit presided over the sale of Sherwood and left the company to start ICP.

Ajit was educated at Cambridge University in England where he received his Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry, Physics, Metallurgy and Mathematics and his Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering. He received his MBA from Columbia University in New York.

Currently, Ajit is committed to utilizing 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 is 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.

Ajit Hutheesing was married first to Amrita Hutheesing and had three sons, Nikhil, Vivek and Ravi.He also has three grand children, Kirin,Remy and Mirai. His marriage ended in divorce and 12 years later he was married to the late Helen Armstrong, a violinist. Ms. Armstrong, was the founder and artistic director of Armstrong Chamber Concerts in Washington, Conn and a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, from which she also received a master's degree.

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