While Canada sees a wide array of Indian students every year who go to the country to pursue higher study, but it is interesting to know that another such Indian student graduated from IIT and moved to Canada to become the richest Indian in the country. This man is V Prem Watsa.

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V Prem Watsa is an Indian businessman and a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, who moved to Canada with next to nothing and worked his way to the top, becoming the richest Indian in Canada and one of the leading businessmen in the country.

Born in Hyderabad, Prem Watsa belonged to a middle-class family. The businessman pursued chemical engineering at the prestigious IIT Madras. With a drive to build his business, he decided to pursue higher education in Ontario, Canada.

However, Prem Watsa did not have the means or the money to study abroad, and he moved to Canada with just 8 dollars in his possession, which converts to Rs 64 as per the current value. To fund his education in Canada, he started selling furnaces and air conditioners in a small locality.

Watsa then decided to start his own company by overtaking a trucking company in Canada and renaming it Fairfax Financial Holdings, becoming its chairman and CEO in 1985, the positions that he still holds at the age of 72.

For the first 15 years of the growth of his company, he took it to a multi-billion dollar level but always stayed out of the public eye. In the year 2012, his company reported revenue of USD 8 billion, which comes out to Rs 65,717 crore.

Prem Watsa is a Padma Shri awardee and has also been honoured with the Order of Canada, the second-highest civilian honour in the country. His company reported a revenue of Rs 1.46 lakh crore in the previous financial year.

Further, Prem Watsa has a net worth of USD 1.2 billion, which comes out to Rs 9,857 crore, making him the richest Indian man in Canada.

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