Costa Coffee New Delhi
At his modest detached home, on a leafy street in Purley, South London, 70-year-old Bruno Costa keeps a cheap Nespresso coffee machine in the kitchen.
Three times each day, at breakfast, lunch, and after dinner, he makes two small cups of strong, dark espresso: one for him, the other for his beloved wife, Elise.
‘Dad just loves the stuff,’ says Bruno’s daughter, Sonia. ‘It’s his great pleasure in life. He used to drink it non-stop, but he’s cut back a bit lately, for health reasons.’
Today, Bruno lives in genteel semi-retirement, spending his time playing golf, and working part-time as a director of a small family tableware company.
His occasional European holidays are largely funded with income from a handful of rental properties.
This distinctly low-key existence — his home is valued at a relatively modest (for London) £700,000 — is a world away from the turbo-charged lifestyle you might expect from the founder of a famous retail chain which now boasts almost 1,400 outlets across the UK.
For Bruno is the co-founder of Costa Coffee — the seemingly ubiquitous drink company, whose shops have spread across our high streets like a rash in recent years.
This week, Costa announced yet another sharp rise in profits: up almost 30 per cent year-on-year, to £90.1 million.
Yet Bruno, who sold his stake in the business in the mid-Eighties, will not see a penny of that cash.
His old company, like so many of our high-street chains, is now owned by a multi-national, after Whitbread bought it for £23 million in 1995.
Most of that money went to Bruno’s brother, Sergio Costa — he had bought out Bruno ten years earlier.
‘Dad’s not a recluse, but he has a very normal existence,’ adds Sonia.
‘When he tells people his name, they sometimes ask if it’s anything to do with the coffee company, and can never believe it when he says “yes”
Address
DLF Farms, Pushp Vihar, New Delhi, Delhi
The foundation stone of the city was laid by George V, Emperor of India during the Delhi Durbar of 1911.It was designed by British architects, Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker. The new capital was inaugurated on 13 February 1931 by Viceroy and Governor-General of India Lord Irwin.
Although colloquially Delhi and New Delhi are used interchangeably to refer to the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT), these are two distinct entities, with New Delhi forming a small part of Delhi. The National Capital Region is a much larger entity comprising the entire NCT along with adjoining districts in neighboring states. New Delhi has been selected as one of the hundred Indian cities to be developed as a smart city under Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi's flagship Smart Cities Mission.
the capital of India during the British Raj until December 1911. Calcutta had become the epicenter of the nationalist movements since the late nineteenth century led to the Partition of Bengal by then Viceroy of British India Lord Curzon. This created massive political and religious upsurge including political assassinations of British officials in Calcutta. The anti-colonial sentiments amongst public leading to complete boycott of British goods forced the colonial government to reunite the Bengal partition and immediate shift of the capital to New Delhi.
Old Delhi had served as the political and financial centre of several empires of ancient India and the Delhi Sultanate, most notably of the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857. During the early 1900s, a proposal was made to the British administration to shift the capital of the British Indian Empire, as India was officially named, from Calcutta on the east coast, to Delhi.[9] The Government of British India felt that it would be logistically easier to administer India from Delhi in the centre of northern India
The land for building the new city of Delhi was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act 1894.
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