The business story
Binod Chaudhary chairs the Chaudhary Group, also branded CG Corp Global, a Nepali conglomerate best known for Wai Wai instant noodles. In 2013 Forbes named him Nepal's first US-dollar billionaire, a position he has held essentially alone since. His career shows what a capable operator can build from a strong family base in a small, import-dependent economy, and why the popular "self-made" label needs qualifying.
His approach follows the logic of conglomerates in thin capital markets.
Before the Chaudhary Group
Chaudhary was born in Kathmandu in 1955 into a family of Marwari descent. His grandfather, Bhuramal Das Chaudhary, had moved from Rajasthan in the 19th century and set up the family's trading business in Nepal. By Binod's childhood the family was a settled, capitalised merchant household, which in the Nepal of that period was a rare starting point.
The formative moment came at about 18, when his father became seriously ill and Binod had to take charge of the family operations. Rather than simply maintaining them, he began to expand. His first venture of his own, in 1973, was a Kathmandu discotheque called Copper Floor, an early sign that he was willing to move beyond the family's traditional lines of trade.
Building the Chaudhary Group
In 1979 he secured a relationship with National Panasonic, bringing a major foreign electronics brand into Nepal. That became the model for the group's middle decades: serve as the local partner for global brands, and use that role to build capital and management reach. In a landlocked country where most imports pass through India, mastering that friction was valuable.
The defining step was Wai Wai, launched in 1984. Unlike distribution, where value comes from someone else's brand, Wai Wai was a product the group built, scaled and manufactured across borders. It now holds a commanding share of the Nepali market and a serious presence in India.
From that base the group diversified into banking, hospitality, real estate, telecom and education. In 1995 it took a controlling stake in Nabil Bank, one of Nepal's leading private banks. CG now operates in roughly 19 countries with around 7,000 employees. Chaudhary served as a Nepali Congress member of Parliament from 2022 to 2025.
The record also includes unresolved matters. Land-acquisition allegations, including the Bansbari Shoe Factory case in which investigators recorded his statement in March 2024, remain unadjudicated. He appeared in the 2021 Pandora Papers, and the family denies any wrongdoing.
