The Anil Ambani constellation of companies which, over the past few years, has helped banks in India and even some overseas to shed a good part of their profits to loan write-off, seems to have suddenly become the cynosure of the enforcement directorate (ED).
There has been denial of any wrongdoing by this group, adding that the cases now publicised by ED are no longer live issues and were closed by the national company law tribunal (NCLT) or the courts in the insolvency proceedings which took place, earlier.
The earlier articles in this column contended that these companies fooled the lenders and the investors with concocted numbers which the auditors and the board failed to reject. The reason for writing this article is to highlight three other cases resulting in loan write-offs that failed to draw due attention in the mainstream media. The first of the three is Reliance Capital Ltd (RCL), about which not enough has been written, except for the audit lapses that NFRA half-heartedly probed. (
Read: Reliance Capital: Should NFRA Net the Big Fish in the Imbroglio?)
RCL is a distinct case from the rest, inasmuch as the bulk of the loan write-offs fell, not to the account of the banks that typically carry the can, but on an assorted group of lenders who, in the first place, had no business lending to that company.
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) process in this case ended in the third week of March 2025, when the secured creditors received Rs9,650 crore, constituting 37% of their total outstanding of Rs26,900 crore. 37% in the context of the Anil Ambani group is an outlier and even higher than the average IBC resolutions.
The reason to highlight this case is due to the identity of the lenders who lost a good deal of their investments. The table below gives an illustrative list of the establishments that lost money by investing in the debt securities of RCL.
Besides these, the others included a plethora of provident fund (PF) trusts of public sector units (PSUs), public and private banks, top private companies across the country, state public utilities and the like.
The PF trusts that lost the money belonging to their employees and workers read like the who’s who of India Inc. - many Tata group companies, Sundram group of Chennai, Ashok Leyland, MNCs like Colgate, SKF, leading oil PSUs and many more. Even the ICWA institute, whose members must be advising their clients to manage risk, featured in this!
It is shocking that private provident funds that set very strict norms for investing outside the Central, state government or PSU bonds, made investments in this company and ended up losing 63%.
It is befitting to publish the names of all these institutions and the money lost, so that the workers of these companies become aware of how their savings were dissipated.
It is to be noted that the investment decisions by the private PF and retiral trusts are made by the very senior finance persons in the parent entity and these cases reflect how poorly such highly equipped individuals chose RCL debentures!
RCL was nothing short of a Ponzi scheme that played out right under the gaze of the regulators. It was registered as an NBFC, and later changed its status to a core investment company.
It was eminently qualified to answer to the description of a Ponzi. Its borrowings were invested in illiquid intra-group investments whose time horizon could never have met the redemption obligations of the debts taken, leading to a major asset-liability mismatch. There was very little of actual equity, except for the inflated profits credited to the reserves! (
Read: Reliance Capital: Accommodative Accounting Aids Promoter Pilfering with Panache?)
Despite such obvious frailties, these debentures were aggressively marketed by the middlemen, including lenders like HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, to their customers. Akin to the non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) that collapsed like Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) and
Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL), these securities enjoyed an undeservedly high credit rating.
RCL started to cave in around FY17-18. It was clearly a basket case for the regulator to intervene as soon as its 2018-19 annual report was put out. Yet, it managed to sell more of its bonds during the period 2017-2019!
The telltale signs of inflated asset values in the books existed well before, but became crystal clear when the conversion to Ind AS happened in FY18-19. The stark differences in the revenue and the impairment figures between the originally declared numbers for 2017-18 and the changes post-Ind AS are explained in the chart below.
By all accounts, the original reported figures that formed the basis to issue the debentures were fudged- yet approved by the auditors with no qualms or qualifications!
Even assuming that the auditors were so ignorant to become aware of the losses only after the application of the IndAS, no disclosures were made while publishing the accounts for the first three quarters of FY18-19.
Price Waterhouse & Co (PW) and HD Pathak & Co, the two auditors, signed off on the quarterly limited review figures. However, PW resigned in June 2019, without signing the fourth quarter (Q4) and the annual accounts, citing concerns of fraud to the tune of approximately Rs12,517 crore. Despite this alarm raised by PW, though quite belatedly, the regulators were unmoved!
RCL, systematically and craftily, replaced the bank borrowings with a wide and assorted cross-section of debenture holders who will never monitor the end use, or seek monthly statements or details, or hold the company to account to some extent.
Though the government employees provident fund (EPF) and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) are the main losers, still, this has not elicited any public outcry or questions in Parliament.
The next two cases to be highlighted have found no mention in the media. These, though involving smaller amounts, would shed light on the cavalier lending practices in the system that was the main cause of so many bad loans arising. These cases were closed by NCLT around February-March 2025.
Both have identical facts, involving a bank, known for questionable lending practices at one point in time, and another institution that is expected to function with greater diligence and circumspection, being a custodian of the public funds.
The first is YES Bank. The other is an institution that operates as a trustee and custodian of monies pooled in from crores of investors, and is believed to function under the highest possible scrutiny of any regulated entity- a mutual fund!
These two were the only lenders to the two entities, Reliance Infrastructure Consulting & Engineers Pvt Ltd and Reliance Big Private Ltd.
YES Bank, (substituted by JC Flower ARC), in which it parked most of its bad loans, had an exposure of Rs518.87 crore to the first entity and Rs515.34 crore to Reliance Big.
Franklin Templeton was the secured creditor for Rs496.36 crore to the first entity and Rs483.72 crore to the second one. Between these two, the total outstanding was Rs2,064.68 crore, by no means a trifling sum to wish away as a mere instance of poor planetary alignment!
Telling this part of the story, alone, in anything less than 2,500 words, may be doing a serious injustice to the labours of NCLT that put these two matters through the protracted paces that testify to the robustness and rigour of the IBC! But, in the interest of not making the readers too anxious to know the outcome and the end result, the narration is cut short!
The fact that any reader would want disclosed without too much fuss is the asset cover in the two entities for the loans, and the business model. Normally, this level of funding would require to be matched by equity, at the least, to the tune of 50%.
Thus, these two entities, together, should have carried on their books about Rs2,500 to Rs3,000 crore of assets.
The two were like Siamese twins in their business model! Each had two wind turbines of 225KVA capacity. While the author has no expertise to assess what this would have cost, the public sources indicate that it may be around Rs6 crore, including installation and sundry costs payable to the local administration.
And, the two owned a land parcel each of 4,047sqmtrs (square metres) or thereabouts. A piece of land admeasuring a little over an acre to support a balance sheet of a few thousand crores of rupees, cannot but be in Malabar Hill, if not in Manhattan!
Maybe some land was purchased in those lofty places, but not transacted in the books of the companies!
The land was actually traced to an idyllic locale in the southern tip of the peninsula, a place known as the ‘Varanasi of the South’! A value of around Rs50 lakh for the land, assuming some yielding tamarind trees were a part of that, would be a flattering figure!
Quite appropriately, the independent valuers had estimated the fair value of both companies at around Rs7 crore and their liquidation value at around Rs4 crore.
Nearly Rs2,000 crore lent on the strength of balance sheets worth about Rs10 crore at best!
The IBC process felicitously concluded with Franklin Templeton receiving Rs4.05 crore against the amount outstanding of Rs980.08 crore.
JC Flower ARC (YES Bank) settled for a more charitable Rs0.49 crore against the dues of Rs1,034.21crore. Quite possibly, they spent more on their lawyers’ conveyance reimbursement!
Where do all these and the other cases involving such massive write-offs leave the supremo of the empire?
It is well known that Mr Ambani, in February 2020, declared in a UK court that his net worth was effectively zero after accounting for his liabilities, amid a legal dispute with three Chinese banks over a US$680-US$925 million loan default by Reliance Communications. He claimed to have sold personal assets, including jewellery worth Rs9.9 crore, to cover legal fees, and stated he owned minimal personal property. (
Read: Anil Ambani Tells London Court That He Has sold Jewellery and Taken Loans from His Mother and Son)
He remains untouched by all this fracas over diversions, bad loans, audit failures, board incompetence and write-offs, in his safe abode!
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(Ranganathan V is a CA and CS. He has over 44 years of experience in the corporate sector and in consultancy. For 17 years, he worked as Director and Partner in Ernst & Young LLP and three years as a senior advisor post-retirement, handling the task of building the Chennai and Hyderabad practice of E&Y in tax and regulatory space. Currently, he serves as an independent director on the board of four companies.)
Sir
If Investigators have the will, either the right or the left will spill the beans
The controversial beleaguered empire of Anil Ambani may crumble if his close confidants, Amitabh Jhunjhunwala or Sateesh Parshuram Seth decide to smoke the peace pipe with investigators probing the charges of money laundering, fraud and several acts of misconduct. Both do have several reasons to evade the highly likely arrests that may follow soon, as ED, CBI and possibly other federal investigators press the accelerator on deciphering layers of financial transactions to related or optically unrelated companies linked to Anil Ambani’s shadow.
The first and foremost question to be asked to the trio is why despite the string of failures and losses, did Amitabh Jhunjhunwala and Sateesh Seth continued getting fat Salaries and even heavier bonuses. Most of them undisclosed, as the route to reward the close confidants was another layer of privately owned firms controlled by friend and family of the duo.
If a name like TAJ Capital Partners, a privately owned company, comes across any investigator. Very few may realize that the AJ of TAJ Capital Partners is an acronym of none other than the financial mastermind Amitabh Jhunjhunwala. A search of company records at best would reveal 2 reasonably known names of Delhi Stockbroking circles, Sanjay Dutt and Sanjay Kumar Jain. Those who know Jhunjhunwala before his tryst with Reliance Group would know the old bond of friendship between Sanjay Dutt and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, both Chartered Accountants. To be clear, this is not the famous actor Sanjay Dutt. A google search with keyword Sanjay Dutt and NDTV would reflect more light on this self-made millionaire of owns Delhi-based Quantum Stockbroking.
Very few who know the first name of Jhunjhunwala’s spouse, could relate the meaning behind the acronym TAJ Capital Partners. Incidentally, TAJ Capital Partners was incorporated soon after the demerger of companies between Mukesh and Anil Ambani. Then there may be some leads before the days of headwinds, when a little know Fairwinds Asset Managers was formed by a former Reliance Anil Ambani official, who now appears as unrelated to the Group. Fairwinds former name starting with Reliance, is not easily searchable anymore. If someone can chance upon the beneficial owner of Midcap Constructions since 2019, it may show some links to this financial wizard Amitabh Jhunjhunwala, whose signatures are not to be found on any document which can be suspected as incriminating.
Names like AJ Capital (post 2019), Symbiosis Properties, CPPE Training will pop up on a deepseek search. Perplexity may un-perplex AI searchers with more information of another former top Reliance Capital bigwig’s wife as a Director on now closed CPPE Training. Howsoever much anyone Grok’s, the subsidiaries and ownership structure of these companies doesn’t pop up unless advanced paid tools are deployed. While Amitabh Jhunjhunwala and this former Reliance Capital market mover head honcho were Key Management Personnel on listed Anil Ambani group companies; there spouses were running their joint venture for 13 long years. Guised as a training company, people in the know indicate further layered and un-subsidiarized entities unrelated to them. Though CPPE came into existence just around the time Amitabh Jhunjhunwala became Group Treasurer of undivided listed Reliance Industries. The former Reliance Capital’s head honcho’s wife came in as a Director just after the Anil Ambani empire got demerged from Reliance Industries.
Is there an Amitabh Jhunjhunwala connect in companies like TAJ Capital, Midcap Constructions, Quantum Securities, Fairwinds Asset Managers, CPPE Training while he was a KMP on listed Reliance Capital and Group MD of ADAG promoted listed companies. Were the business dealings between these entities ever disclosed to regulators and public shareholders. A deep dive may reveal some links that do not even necessitate getting into the structures and dealings of companies starting with Woodstock or JK or other realty companies. Were some of these entities buying into listed securities before pumping them up and added in Reliance Mutual Fund portfolios.
A search on Amitabh Jhunjhunwala also reveals a big fat wedding in 2012 attended by Bollywood stars, where Anil Ambani welcomed the guests at the gate. Such was the proximity and dependence of Anil Ambani on his right hand. It’s a different matter that the Groom and the Bride were later named in Panama Paper leaks for using Mossack Fonseca for setting up a company in Singapore.
A google search in name of the groom will throw up AJ Family Offices out of Singapore. Abhinav Jhunjhunwala is reported as Scion of one of India’s Wealthiest Families by an international financial magazine. The question arises, how did Amitabh Jhunjhunwala become one of India’s wealthiest families, when his employer Anil Ambani group was embroiled in controversies and losses since early 2010’s. Born in a family of a government servant and a journalist in Delhi, Jhunjhunwala is said to have joined Reliance in 1992-93. Howsoever high paying is the job, even the topmost head honcho’s (employees) of corporate India cannot get close of “wealthiest families” of India. His close fried Rana Kapoor and Chanda Kochar included. If the rise of Amitabh Jhunjhunwala from 1993 to 2020, i.e. 27 years, took him to the club of wealthiest in India; does his Income tax Return of past 27 years show the riches. Or were these riches embedded in privately owned companies (through fat bonuses of 2% of profits made), undisclosed to the regulators despite him being a KMP on some of India’s topmost listed companies.
Incidentally, the man who is known to have set up Reliance Capital is also the man behind AJ Capital (or possibly behind TAJ Capital Partners too). Though Jhunjhunwala is said to have fallen apart with Anil Ambani in 2019, and resigned from various ADAG companies; some insiders claim that the separation is nothing but an optical illusion to create a smokescreen. The sudden flow of funds to the offshore AJ Family Offices in Singapore may possibly indicate some proceeds, Anil Ambani is being investigated for, having been routed after exponential transfers. The friendship between Anil Ambani and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala seems to have continued even after the optical separation. The World Cup Thriller 1983 produced by Anil Ambani owned Reliance Broadcast was funded by none other than Amitabh Jhunjhunwala controlled AJ Capital. The movie was released a good 2 years after Amitabh Jhunjhunwala resigned from Anil Ambani group and its companies.
While there is no link whatsoever, but a large investment by a US based Alternate Investment Fund Varde Partners in Anil Ambani companies was routed from its affiliate VFSI Holdings Pte based out of Singapore. The close to a Billion-dollar investment comes at terms that a Tata Group company or a Mukesh Ambani controlled company would command. Yet VFSI Holdings invested in a company whose promoter has been declared as ‘bankrupt’, barred by SEBI and had multiple allegations of diversion of funds already. Yet, ever since Anil Ambani has been under fire soon after he turned 66 in June 2025, nothing has been heard from Varde Partners or VFSI Holdings. Nor has any concern of Varde Partners was heard after the ED and CBI actions conduced soon after Amitabh Jhunjhunwala turned 70 on July 31st.
Amitabh Jhunjhunwala is said to be the brain behind the Group. The mastermind who aided Anil to extract his pound of flesh from Mukesh. Possibly the Richest and the Wealthiest employee Corporate India has ever seen. Yet, there are no signatures of the brain who used to think and direct the other hand of Anil Ambani, Sateesh Seth who celebrated his 70th birthday on August 13th under the fear of an inevitable arrest by federal investigators.
Rapped by SEBI multiple times on corporate misgovernance, this head honcho is a qualified CA and a Law Graduate who claims to be an experienced corporate governance professional. It is also a mere coincidence that soon after the split between Ambani brothers, Sateesh Seth’s elder brother Dhanpat Parshuram Seth started becoming Directors on multiple unlisted companies since 2006. Only Sateesh Seth’s elder sibling, by 2 years a d 4 months, Dhanpat Parshuram Seth can share the reasons behind his sudden success after Ambani bros split. Looking beyond Tech Barrack Solutions where Sateesh sits as a director alongwith his sons Harsh and Nayan; there may be traces of big fat bonuses going to some privately owned companies from shadows of Anil Ambani’s web of companies. In case of Seth, the answer may lie in many real estate companies where Dhanpat was the watch guard.
Either of the two hands of Anil Ambani may soon have to face a tough choice. Whether to co-operate with investigators and cut Anil’s hand, or whether to cool their heels at Delhi’s Tihar without the company of Anil Ambani. Who will break first is the Rs. 17,000 crore question. Or will both break together and reveal the skeletons in the cupboard from year 2005 onwards. If none of these two multi-millionaire self-made corporate executives vomit the truth out, then the former CEO of Reliance Infrastructure has all the reasons to become a prosecution witness to save the paltry 100 odd crores he made during his 19-year old association with Anil Ambani companies, often known as the right hand of Sateesh Parshuram Seth. If Punit Narendra Garg aids the investigators, then the story might as well go back to Global Acquisitions of Anil Ambani’s RCOM where millions of dollars were spent to buy 2 companies at a premium, despite they remaining unsold for over a year, at pennies to the dollar. Otherwise, the 61st birthday of Punit Garg, which falls on India’s Republic Day, will be celebrated inside four walls with Zomato delivering a cake from Delhi’s tony Khan Market.
If these 3 don’t, Suresh Madihally Rangachar, a former classmate of Anil Ambani with his NRI temperament will be the easiest nut to crack. Or the aging Gautam Bhaidas Doshi will no longer want to be an easy prey to Sateesh Seth, like he was made the scapegoat in the 2G spectrum scam investigations; due to which he ended up spending 9 months at Delhi’s Tihar. He too has been tagged as "Fraud" in Reliance Telecom - BOI case. He has many more directorships to loose, if he ends up getting nailed in any of the investigations.
The options are many, but its up to ED and CBI to choose who they want to let go off; and who they want to send behind bars, if such large scale massive fund diversions of public money have to be stopped for once and all.
Very detailed and well researched article. Clearly shows how the taxpayers and investors money is siphoned off by dubious businessmen.
What I gather is that despite the failure of all his companies, destroying shareholders wealth; Anil Ambani still m travels in a private jet. Some say he has 3 jets at his call.
It is also rumored that he built a palatial house worth 1000s of crores in Mumbai. The land was siphoned off to his private company from BSES.
These are possibly the end use of misappropriated funds. However I have not come across any detailed article like yours, where the siphoned money is finally deployed.
When shareholders were losing their shirts, Anil Ambani was leading an ultra expensive life.
The stories of siphoning public money I first read was 20-25 years back when he was said to have gifted a luxury sea facing apartment and a big diamond ring to an actress he was having an affair with. But everything was managed despite his close aides claiming : boasting in their circles how they tactfully transfer money to private accounts.
My question is that why such cases are let to die, allowing people like Anil Ambani to live another day for a new scam.
Can’t media find how much Ambani spends on luxury jets when his companies default on public sector bank loans, and erode shareholder wealth. In my case, once shares worth 40 lakh are now worth below 50,000.
Can’t media or investigators find his Anil Ambani built a 4000 crore house on a land parcel demerged to his private company for 1/2 % of its market value.
The house and the jets are assets, even though they may not be built on siphoned money, they will allow investigators to recover some value for banks a shareholders.
Anil Ambani claims he didn’t know what his employees were doing.. is it possible when thousands of crores were going to his personal companies.
My fear is that he will escape the long arms of the law, till a reporter repeats The Scam of 1992 on Anil Ambani. 3 decades ago, Harshad Mehta perpetuated a Securities Scam. Anil Ambani has scammed Securities..