COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

With His Daughters Back With Him Bipin Shah Is Ready For Big Dreams

A P Kamath

Nearly six weeks after two hefty men grabbed two young girls from their mother off a serene Swiss street in Lucerne, and whisked them into a white van, and delivered them into their arms of their father they had not seen for nearly two years, Bipin C Shah has not stepped out to speak about the adventure – except for a brief interview with Time magazine. Nor has he discussed how how he is recreating his relationship with the daughters.

The daughters – Sarah Lynn, 9, and Genevieve 7, had gone missing for nearly a year along with Shah's former wife, and the millionaire businessman had announced a $ 2 million bounty for them.

Finally he mounted a $ 3 million rescue operation following tips about the children and mother living in Switzerland under assumed names. There is speculation that a woman who helped abused wives and children "disappear" leaked the news about Shah's wife and children when he slapped her with a $ 10 million suit.

The loss of his children took a terrible emotional toll on the executive whom American Banker magazine once characterized with a quizzical headline: The Bill Gates of Payment Systems?

"I've abandoned my business interests. I haven't left the house for six months other than to meet with investigators,'' Shah said last year

When the ordeal was over and the children are returned, Shah said he is committed to starting a non-profit foundation to help parents who have lost their children but lack the financial means to launch a worldwide campaign as he has done.

"I never realized how little help a case like this gets in the richest nation in the world. Non-profit organizations exist,' he had said, "but I believe I can enhance the service."

His spokesman said Shah is serious about starting the organization.

Meanwhile, he is being vilified on the Web.

Now, on the Web there are many who believe that Shah is the kidnapper. Go to www.Corestates.org, and you will find detailed and lurid discussion about the man; many apparently are disgruntled employees who worked for him when he was the big shot at the Corestates bank about 20 years ago.

While his critics continue to blacken his reputation, Shah is ready for a number of big business ventures.

According to his spokesman Michael Eiser, Shah has not been able to concentrate on his business for the year because of his obsession to get back his children.

The 59-year-old businessman may have to wait for some time before the dust settles down on the kidnapping saga, though.

His former wife, Ellen T Dever, is still in Europe – she will be arrested if she steps into America, as she has been declared a fugitive by the FBI.

But Shah seems to have plans for a reconciliation – at least for the sake of his daughers. Though his spokesperson has been saying that his two daughters have been back as if they had never gone away, Shah could not help telling Time magazine – which had run a cover story on him about a year ago – that the girls were "very angry" initially because their mother was absent.

"I know how she feels because I know how I felt when it happened to me," he said. He also said despite what had happened that he will never deprive the children of their mother.

But people who have known the couple believe there could be no reconciliation, and Dever is genuinely scared of her former husband.

"There are no failures in life, only delays," Shah had said while launching a bounty hunt for his daughters.

And that has been his business philosophy, too.

The former banker, who started CoreStates bank's MAC network and convinced groups of banks to set up 24 hour money machines, was planning a slew of new ventures at the time his daughters disappeared. These included electronic bill payment systems in areas of home banking and payroll processing, particularly for doctors.

Two years ago he was thinking loud how the medical area is in chaos and how the cost of hospital care was going out of hand. He may work on devising sophisticated money saving payment systems.

Shah, who was born the youngest of 11 children of a small merchant in India, won a fully-paid scholarship to Ohio's Baldwin-Wallace University. He did his graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.

Except for his personal life, he has a singular streak of success stories.

In 1992, Shah left the ranks of corporate bankers to start Transaction Processing Inc, an electronic banking services company. Transaction Processing entered the highly fragmented market of processing credit-card and debit-card transactions and began building by acquisitions in a market that was only about 10 percent penetrated.

Shah's first acquisition was TransNet, a Tampa, Fla-based electronic transaction processor which processed credit- and debit-card transactions primarily for restaurants and hotels.

In 1995, TransNet changed its name to Gensar Technologies Inc., and Transaction Processing became Gensar Holdings Inc.

In just about five years Gensar's transactions rose from $ 190 million to $ 300 million. Shah's goal was to reach 1 billion by 1998. But he could not resist the offer First USA made and sold Gensar for about $ 200 million.

His friends and associates believe Shah has a lot of things on his hands: the nonprofit organization, new business plans, and creating a new life for his children. He won't, just won't have time to worry about his recent ordeal, they believe.

Tell us what you think of this report