From $20 to $300 million. Ramachandran Ottapathu arrived in Botswana with $20 to march across Africa to become a retail king. Ottapathu is the head of Choppies, Botswana’s biggest retailer, with a turnover in 2015 of $533 million. Today, Choppies runs 170 stores across Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe.