Putting the curry business on sale

The Pathak family, who arrived in Britain as immigrants with £5 in their pocket 50 years ago, is in line to pick up £200 million after selling its curry business.

Patak's is being bought by Associated British Foods (ABF), one of the world's largest food conglomerates, which owns Ryvita biscuits, Kingsmill bread and Ovaltine.

Last Tuesday Kirit Pathak, the head of the company and sole shareholder, received about £110 million, but providing he stays on to run the business for another five years, he will pick up an estimated further £100 million if he hits all his targets, according to City sources.

This would make him one of the country's richest Asians. Pathak and his wife, Meena, will also sit on the board of ABF. He said: "I don't think it has quite sunk in yet. We are just very proud."

Patak's success has mirrored the booming appetite for curry in Britain, and the company provides four out of five of the country's curry houses with sauces and mixed spices. But its main business is selling ready meals to the likes of Tesco. Last year it achieved a turnover of nearly £70 million.

Pathak, who spends his spare time meditating and listening to country and western music, said he had no plans to spend the windfall. "I am afraid it is business as usual," he said.

"We've got a job to do. I am sure there will be time to reminisce later on."

The Pathaks' rags-to-riches story - complete with traumatic family fall-out - is one that most Bollywood scriptwriters would struggle to beat. When Pathak was four his family, originally from Gujarat in India, emigrated from Kenya.

His father's first job on arriving in Britain in 1957 was a street sweeper before he set up a sweet shop in a back street of Camden, north London. Pathak transformed the shop into a global curry brand, which is now based in a former Spam factory in Leigh, Lancashire, employing 650 people. The company not only supplies Tesco but also Indian supermarkets, whose shoppers have little idea they are buying products made just outside Wigan.

It has not all been plain sailing. Last year Pathak resolved a bitter and long-standing dispute with his sisters, who alleged that they had been cheated out of their fair share of the business. It was settled out of court. "Let's not get into that," Pathak said last Tuesday. "We must look to the future." He insisted there was no big family celebration planned. "I just want to have a nice, home-cooked Indian meal made by Meena tonight.

"I have spent the last week locked into lawyers' offices. It'll be nice to eat at home."