Sant Singh Chatwal

Sant Singh Chatwal is a Sikh Indian-American businessman. According to The Indian Express, "he is a former Indian Air Force pilot who migrated to the United States in the 1980s and started the Bombay Palace chain of restaurants." Also President and CEO of Hampshire Hotels & Resorts, LLC, his company owns hotels in the United States, the United Kingdom and Thailand, with over 2,500 rooms in Manhattan. Bombay Palace has locations around the World; including Montreal, Toronto, New York, Washington DC, Beverly Hills, Houston, Budapest and Kuala Lumpur.

Chatwal is a Trustee of the William J. Clinton Foundation, a Charitable foundation organized by President Clinton focusing on global issues of health security, economic empowerment (HIV/AIDS Initiative; Clinton Global Initiative, Urban Enterprise Initiative, Healthier Generation, etc.) He was the only Indian from the United States who was honored by the Govt. of Punjab (India) in April 1999 with the “Order of Khalsa” for his outstanding service to the community. Chatwal has devoted resources to worthy political causes, working very closely with the Democratic Party, in particular with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator John Kerry, Senator Charles Schumer, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Joseph Crowley.

In February 2006, Chatwal hosted an extravagant wedding in India for his son Vikram Chatwal. The wedding including a week of festivities spread out over a week and three Indian cities and a veritable fleet of chartered planes. Guests included Bill Clinton, Lakshmi Mittal, Deepak Chopra and the Prime Minister of India. [1] Ironically, Sant Chatwal had earlier filed for personal bankruptcy in New York to discharge millions in debt owed to various people and entities including the US government. In court filings in the late 1990s he stated he had just ‘$100’ while living in a penthouse in New York’s expensive upper-Eastside. Among the many banks that saw their loans turn bad were Lincoln Savings Bank, First New York Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and State Bank of India.