London, Nov 08: NRI businessman and founder of the Cobra Beer, Karan Bilimoria has been adjudged as the entrepreneur of the year award instituted for the first time by London Chamber of Commerce. Hyderabad-born Bilimoria was chosen for the prestigious award from among a short-list of four - Sally Preston, who remortgaged her home to launch Babyluicious Frozen Baby Foods and clocked up sales of more than 500,000 pounds in its first full year.

The other three being Chris Carey, founder of Chris Carey collections, a Deptford-based recycling business; Ian Rickwood, head of Benjys, the sandwiches retailer; and Karan Bilimoria, the brains behind Cobra Beer. The judging panel included Lord Marshall of British Airways, Sir Peter Davis from Sainsburys, Fru Hazlitt from Yahoo, David Page, the ex-Pizza Express chief, Hardeep Kalsi of Carlton, Tom Vyner of L'oreal, Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission on Racial Equality and Chris Blackhurst, city editor of evening standard. Sir Gulam Noon, NRI industrialist and the London Chamber's past president was chairman of the judges. Bureau Report