There is a school of thought that says that if you are going to get something done properly, then you have to do it yourself. It is a principle at the heart of many a great business and it is one that Ramakrishna Karuturi knows well, one that this week has made him the world’s largest cultivator of roses.

He has risen to the top of the rose tree, becoming the world’s largest cultivator of the flowers, after Karuturi Networks, his Bangalore-based company, agreed to buy Sher Agencies, the Kenyan nursery of a Dutch flower producer, in a €50 million (£35 million) deal.

The mechanical engineer, who returned to India from business school in Ohio in the United States a decade ago to run the family cables and transmissions towers business, began his unlikely move into the flower industry one long, frustrating Valentine’s Day. Hunting for a rose bouquet for his wife across India’s IT hub, he drew a blank. Bangalore was a rose-free zone.

So he decided to start to grow them himself. In 1996, the entrepreneur opened two greenhouses on 3.2 hectares of land in the southern Indian city, which is renowned for its temperate climate, and began to export the flowers. Mr Karuturi’s roses are now sold in Africa, America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. With the Sher acquisition, the fourth outside India and a deal financed through foreign currency convertible bonds, Karuturi’s annual production has jumped from 130 million stems to 650 million. Its target is one billion stems by 2010. To achieve that, the company will build more greenhouses in Ethiopia and will seek further acquisitions in the highly fragmented global flower business. It is in advanced takeover talks with a nursery in Ecuador.

Mr Karuturi, 42, believes that there is a large market in India, where Valentine’s Day is being celebrated increasingly. “There is huge potential in India. When I came back from the US, Valentine’s Day was unheard of as a festival, but now even on Mother’s Day, gifts are exchanged. I was surprised how quickly Western events have been assimilated into the culture,” Mr Karuturi said. About 20 per cent of Karuturi’s rose business is domestic, but he says that can be increased to 50 per cent. The company has 40 flower shops in India and aims to open a further 60 by Christmas.

Karuturi also supplies bottled gherkins to European, American and Russian supermarkets and provides niche software and IT services.

An estimated 40,000 hectares of land are under rose cultivation world-wide, yet the biggest farm is no more than 200 hectares. Kenya has the world’s largest share of the rose trade - 4 per cent – because it has ideal growing conditions, including 12 hours of light a day. Horticulture is Kenya’s third-biggest foreign exchange earner, bringing about $100 million (£49 million) into the economy every year, with most flowers exported to Europe.

Say it with flowers

— The rose is 35 million years old, according to fossil evidence. Garden cultivation of roses began about 5,000 years ago, probably in China

— The genus Rosa has about 150 species spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from Alaska to Mexico and including North Africa

— A revolution in rose breeding and growing occurred in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries when trade with the Far East brought Rosa chinensis, the China rose, to European attention

— “Old Blush”, the first variety of China rose to reach the West, was introduced into Sweden in 1752 and the rest of Europe by 1793. Rosa x odorata, the tea rose, followed in 1808 or 1809

— The global floral industry is worth around $40 billion annually, of which roses account for a considerable proportion. Roses account for the largest proportion of the £22 million spent on flowers in Britain on Valentine’s Day

— The rose was an ancient symbol of love and beauty and is the national flower of England and the United States

— A red rose is also representative of social democracy and is the symbol of the Labour Party in Britain and of socialist parties in several countries

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