South Africa's Bill Lynch, CEO of Imperial Holdings, walked away with Ernst & Young's World Entrepreneur of the Year Award in a hotly contested, close contest. At the awards function Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of the jury, said it had been a very tough decision.

The glittering gala function that lasted for about five hours culminated in the award announcement Oscar style, where the final winner's name was kept a closely guarded secret till the last moment.

The tempo kept building up as the buzz spread that India's Kumar Mangalam Birla and a few others were hot favourites.

Ultimately, what tilted the odds in Lynch's favour seems to have been his classic rags-to-riches entrepreneurial story.

With only a village school education and a love for business from the day he began work in a garage in rural Ireland, he painstakingly built South Africa's largest transport and mobility group, Imperial Holdings.

Today, he is chief executive of a business with a market capitalisation of about  euro 4 billion.

In 1971 Lynch came to South Africa as a 27-year-old with £2,000, no job and few prospects during a worsening recession. He joined Imperial Motors, a car dealership that was losing money at that point of time. He led its turnaround, applying disciplines that were second nature to a manager raised in poverty. In 1973 he acquired 10 per cent of Imperial.

He led a growth strategy diversifying into truck hire, logistics, car rental and leasing. Today, Imperial employs 36, 000 people in three continents.

In the past, while India's NR Narayana Murthy won the award a few years ago, others like Sunil Mittal and BM Munjal of the Hero group have been close contenders.

For 38-year old Birla, who celebrates his birthday later this week, a win would have been a good birthday present but unfortunately it passed him by.