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Sri and Gopi Hinduja

The London-based brothers are flexing their financial muscles. This year they bid, unsuccessfully, to buy into Hutchison Essar, India’s second-largest mobile phone company , and weighed up the acquisition of a stake in Telecom Italia. Last summer Sri, 71, and Gopi Hinduja, 67, bought a London property once owned by the Queen (qv), paying £58m for a 100-year lease on a 60-room home on the Mall.