Kaizad Hansotia

It was in 1988 while on vacation in Goa, India, that Kaizad Hansotia stumbled into a godsend that, little known to him at the time, would become a revolutionary multi-million dollar company in the cigar industry. Out on the town one night during the vacation, Kaizad was enjoying himself and having a few drinks. Before he knew it, he was buying cigars off a couple of Portuguese vendors who were selling a brand by the name of Gurkha. According to Kaizad, “One thing led to another and I ended up buying their entire business from them for $143! I bought all of their cigars and also their company name, which was Gurkha. At that time they had a dead company, so I decided to buy them out.” Was this a matter of fate, or a matter of foresight? That’s for others to decide, but at present it looks like both.

As on the one hand a matter of fate he was in the watch industry at the time, and the reason he bought all the cigars were as corporate gifts for my watch clients. He didn’t know anything about the cigar industry at that time, absolutely zero. He started giving the cigars out to all his duty free suppliers, and they liked it. Pretty soon all were started asking him for more. On the other hand as a matter of foresight, Kaizad saw the opening and like an aggressive running back, attacked at full speed. That’s when he realized there was a real business opportunity here. So not knowing anything about cigars or the tobacco industry, he talked to the friend who was in the business and had been a tobacco grower. Alon with that its how he started out, and how Gurkha Cigars began.”