CCD founder VG Siddhartha missing: Here's all you need to know about India's coffee king

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VG Siddhartha, founder of the country's largest coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), has been missing since Monday night. Siddhartha is the son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna. 

Meanwhile, Police officials have launched a massive search for him. According to his driver, Siddhartha, known as India's coffee king, was talking to someone on his mobile phone when he got off from the car and then disappeared.

Who is V. G. Siddhartha:

V. G. Siddhartha is an Indian businessman from Karnataka's Chikkamagaluru district. He is best known as the founder-owner of the chain of Cafe Coffee Day outlets.

VG Siddhartha comes from a family that has been in the business of coffee plantation for around 140 years.

He is credited with creating India's largest coffee empire. He is also married to the daughter of former Karnataka CM SM Krishna.

Earning a masters from the Mangalore University, VG Siddhartha dabbled in the stock market in his early career. He joined JM Financial Limited in 1983-1984 in Mumbai as a management trainee/intern in Portfolio Management and securities trading on the Indian Stock Market under Vice-Chairman Mahendra Kampani. He was just 24 years then.

After two years with JM Financial Limited, when Siddhartha returned to Bangalore, his father gave him money to start a business of his choice.

Almost 15 years later, Siddhartha established a successful coffee business in Karnataka. He opened the first CCD store in Bangalore’s Brigade Road.

He was the first entrepreneur in Karnataka to set up a café in 1996 (Café Coffee Day, a chain of "youth hangout" coffee parlors). Now, he has 1,740 CCD stores in around 250 cities.

All the coffee served at Coffee Day outlets comes from the 10,000 acres of plantations that Siddhartha owns in Chikamagalur, Karnataka.

Besides Cafe Coffee Day, Siddhartha has founded a hospitality chain which runs a seven-star resort Serai and Cicada.

VG Siddhartha was accused of tax evasion in 2017. The Income Tax department had conducted raid across 20 locations in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Chikmagalur connected to Siddhartha.

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