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Lord Rami Ranger


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RAMI RANGER achieved one of his great ambitions when he was given a peerage in Theresa May’s resignation honours list in October 2019 – “for me to be sitting with the great and the good I have to pinch myself sometimes”.

When he spoke to GG2 Power List for this profile, the businessman and philanthropist sounded as though his journey was almost done. “I am 73 – people retire at 65,” he began. “Now I’m in the twilight of my life. There is no strength, no aggression. I don’t have that old drive. It’s all died down.”

He has given over day-to-day running of the companies that he founded – his freight company, Sea, Air & Land Forwarding, in 1987 and Sun Mark, an international marketing and distribution firm, in 1995 – to his son-in-law, Harmeet (“Sunny”) Singh Ahuja, who is married to Reena, the eldest of Lord Ranger’s three daughters.

Reena has taken over as co-chairman of Conservative Friends of India from her father.

Ranger’s middle daughter, Amita, a haematologist, and her husband, an orthopaedic surgeon, both work for the NHS where “they have been on the frontline”.

In business, the pandemic has made it a difficult year for Ranger who sells almost “everything available in a supermarket”, from biscuits to fruit drinks, to clients in 130 countries. “We sell English products for the top end of the market. And because people have lost their jobs and businesses are suffering, they’re not buying as much luxury items as they once did,” he explains.

“I had seven hotels – I sold five,” he goes on.

“I discovered the hotel business is not for me. I’m pulling out because it takes too much time. We have to focus on our core business – exports. That is our main focus because we

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