HERALD: How did your journey as an entrepreneur begin?
ANIL COUNTO: I started at very young age. In 1966, after completing my civil engineering accidently (I wanted to be a mechanical engineer), I saw Goa soon after its independence was in a development mood. My father was a businessman so I had those genes. My elder brother Jayaram sacrificed his own education so that we got a better education. It was not easy those days and I worked for five years in different types of engineering works for several companies both in Goa and abroad. I also took up a gazetted officer job during 1968-69 in the PWD Department of Government of Goa to develop my contacts. I left this government job without informing my parents and they were very annoyed with me. I had the mettle in me to take up the challenge, arranged money through joint ventures and thus began my venture into entrepreneurship in 1971 with Khaunte Engineering company. I used to move for more than 150 kilometers every day on a scooter to establish myself in the world of business.
HERALD: How did you fend for yourself?
AC: My friend Victor Albuquerque who was also in PWD and his father became my partner for one year and then he soft landed with me. In 1973 we made Alcon (Albuquerque-Counto) and in 1974 Victor joined me who was an expert in several issues and had excellent presentation. Together we did lot of construction jobs as real estate came into Goa only in 1975-76. We were one of the first youngsters those days as civil engineers to start this business. Most of the others were contractors. Those days we used to ‘build homes and not houses’. In 1976 we both went to Bahrain and entered into a joint venture with Habib and formed a company called Halco and worked there for five years but the continuity was missing and we lost on both grounds in Goa and Bahrain. So we returned to Goa and we built a pharmaceutical company E-Marc and entered into real estate job in early 1980s and we build Hotel Delmon. The foundation stone for the hotel was laid in 1980 by Victor’s and my mother together. In 1987 we build Ronil and in 1989 we build the Dona Silvia etc. We build hotels because we got tax benefits.
HERALD: Post 1998 you started on your own. How did that leg of your journey go?
AC: After amicably separating with Victor, I started my journey with two hotels – Delmon and Ronil. I then started to grow my cement business which I had started in 1992. In fact, I was the first person to start making Portland slag cement in the west coast of India and Alcon Cement had a tie-up with ACC. From construction, real estate, hospitality, manufacturing of cement and then I also went into logistics by building a jetty in 2006 and the traders saved Rs 300-400 per tonne due to this jetty. There was big opposition by the mine owners when I started building this jetty, however, it got settled by court intervention. Now I have started distributing responsibilities amongst my two sons Akash and Gaurav.
HERALD: How is your business growing now?
AC: My dream was to make my company turnover to Rs 300 crore which we have achieved and I have given the task to my both sons to take it forward to Rs 1000 crore which is achievable and I am supporting them. We want to spread all over India and we can do this very soon. I strongly believe that one must be willing to take risks, explore and venture out to grow big. If this attitude comes, success will follow.
HERALD: What is your next action plan?
AC: I would like to convert the by-products into useable products and I have started doing it. Since 2008-09, we have Alcofine which is a micro fine product where D-50 is only 5 microns and it is being used in construction industry and we have been able to substitute the silica fumes by Acofines. This product is being widely used in Indonesia to build roads as the making time is cuts short massively with more strength and less water usage, to sustain heavy traffic.
This is patented by Alcon. I must say that Alcofine is being used in almost all infrastructure projects. I am engaging engineering colleges to teach them practically how to build concrete. We have also tied-up with Tata Steel on this. In fact, this product has also been used by L&T in our third Mandovi bridge and the scope to spread on this is large.
HERALD: How has Goa helped you?
AC: I came to Goa when Goa was developing after its independence from Portuguese rule. This was the biggest indirect help which Goa gave me as I grew up with that force of development process. Had Goa been attached to any other state and was not an independent state, I would not have been what I am today.
