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When in doubt, do in Rome as the Romans do
I was once conducting a residential training programme in London, at a city hotel, for an Indian software company. When I came down one morning and joined the personnel manager, Ravi, at the breakfast table, I was shocked. Having already started his breakfast, Ravi was busy pushing a piece of his mushroom omelette into his mouth – with this knife!...
The modus operandi was as follows. KB Patel knew when Dipak Patel of Passport India would place his orders and for how much and bought and sold the same shares, timed with Passport’s trades. Here is one example. On 26 March 2008, KB Patel placed buy orders at 10.04am for shares of Ansal Properties while Passport India put its buying orders at 11.06am. During the same time, the price moved up from Rs151.95 to Rs155. A minute after Passport bought, KB Patel offloaded his shares, making a profit of Rs1.87 lakh from this move. The same modus operandi was followed in the synchronised buying and selling of many other scrips.
During the trading hours, Dipak Patel received or made 40 calls to and from AB Patel and eight calls to and from KB Patel. On 33 instances, the calls with AB Patel were around the time that the synchronised trading was taking place. In five out of eight, the calls were at the time during which buying and selling orders were placed by either KB Patel or Passport India. Amazingly, on many occasions, the front-running and synchronised trades generated tiny profits like Rs6,546. In one case, Gujarat NRE Coke was bought at Rs23 and sold at Rs23.10 for a profit of Rs12,093 while Maharashtra Seamless was sold at Rs270 and bought at Rs268. Nevertheless, SEBI has documented ample evidence to prove that KB Patel was front-running the trades of Passport India. Here is one interesting piece of evidence. On 31 January 2008, KB Patel bought 63,518 shares of Financial Technologies (FT) and sold the same number of shares when Passport bought 70,897 shares. Dipak Patel and the dealers of Karvy Stock Broking Private Ltd were talking about this transaction which SEBI traced to the Bloomberg transcripts. Karvy dealers wondered where the supply of FT shares was coming from. Dipak Patel replied: “I know exactly where they are coming from.” SEBI’s conclusion: “From the above, it can be prima facie inferred that Dipak Patel had masterminded both sets of transactions in such a manner that KB Patel benefits from the trades placed before those of Passport India.”
Sharing the Loot
Bhoomi Industries is a partnership of KB Patel and AB Patel. Bhoomi has two
accounts with Shree Kadi Sahakari Bank Ltd, Gujarat — a current account (2292)
and a hypothecation account (closed in 2008). In the current account of Bhoomi,
high cash transactions were seen including withdrawal of Rs41,90,000 on 20
February 2009 and Rs14,00,000 on 25 February 2009. The outflow of funds from
Bhoomi Industries provides ample evidence of massive money laundering in these
transactions, according to SEBI.
Front-running is among the most common market malpractices. But the regulator
has never been able to thoroughly investigate and nail front-running as it has
done in case of Passport. After the remarkable investigation in the Pyramid
Saimira case, this is another feather in SEBI’s cap.
The sale proceeds from the transactions between KB Patel and Passport India
were deposited in KB Patel’s Kotak Mahindra Bank (account no
08150140002879) and were subsequently transferred to various other accounts or
connected entities of KB Patel. There is a link with Dipak Patel here as well.
He was found to have remitted funds from his NRE account (08151040000062) with
Kotak Mahindra Bank to KB Patel’s account with Kotak Mahindra Bank in
Kadi, Gujarat. The amounts received by KB Patel from Dipak Patel were
subsequently transferred to Bhoomi Industries and withdrawn. The mailing
address provided to Kotak Mahindra Bank by Dipak Patel in Gujarat is the same
as that of KB Patel. Interestingly,
KB Patel was authorised by Dipak Patel to operate his account as a
mandate-holder in the account opening form.
In its 8th report tabled in August 1998, the Disinvestment Commission examined various options for dealing with the problems of AI. The actual financial figures given in that report are naturally different from the latest financial figures available, but the basic recommendations are valid even today. Four options were examined.
Option1: The first option said there would be no financial support by the government and no disinvestment. AI’s financial performance is bound to deteriorate further and would become a sick company in the near term. Sickness of AI would result in total dominance of traffic in and out of India by foreign airlines, with attendant consequences.
Option2: While examining the 2nd option of continual sustenance support, the Commission had pointed out that unless AI’s operating performance improves substantially, the benefits of financial restructuring would not be sustainable in the medium term. Similar fund infusion would need to be repeated at regular intervals, implying recurring and substantial financial burden on the exchequer.
Option 3: The 3rd option was related to government support of Rs.1,000 crore as suggested by AI at that time, but meeting fleet replacement, modernisation and expansion would have cost Rs.20,000 crore.
Option 4: The 4th option involved government support of Rs1,000 crore for immediate financial relief followed by strategic sales. The Disinvestment Commission recommended that option four be adopted and following steps were recommended:
While steps are taken for putting through the strategic sale expeditiously,
the following measures may also be taken:
1. The maintenance, engineering and ground support operations of AI, which are
inherent strengths of the carrier, could be hived off as separate companies. In
line with the current global trend, this would enable AI to benefit from
outsourcing of these services and reduce its overheads.
2. Currently, AI connects major international destinations with all major international airports in India. A well-knit and effective hub and strong arrangement with Indian Airlines (IA) would enable AI to provide direct and convenient connectivity with all Indian airports. For this, there should be a clear demarcation of roles which these two airlines have to play in providing better customer service and jointly competing with other international airlines.
3. A voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) should be immediately introduced to reduce manpower.
4. Since airline is a highly service oriented industry, AI should initiate steps to improve quality of its service that will help the carrier in enhancing its market share.
5. In its sixth report, the Commission had given its recommendations on Hotel Corporation of India Ltd (HCIL), a wholly owned subsidiary of AI. The recommendations included sale of Delhi and Mumbai Centaur hotels as separate units, initiation of dialogue with J&K government for Centaur Srinagar and the decision regarding flight-catering services to be taken by AI. AI management should take suitable view on these recommendations while undertaking financial restructuring exercise.
While the Commission was examining the case of AI, the government had appointed a committee to examine the merger of IA with AI. This matter was not referred to the Commission. The committee recommended that IA should be merged with AI with other consequential arrangements. Couple of years ago, the government merged IA with AI without referring to the committee’s recommendations to the Disinvestment Commission, which had table the report in August 1998. The only action taken on the Commission’s report was to segregate AI’s Centaur hotel and go for a strategic sale, which became controversial. It was during the same time when Commission had table its report that AI had asked for financial support of Rs1, 000 crore from the government. Now, after a decade, AI has urged the government for financial support of Rs10, 000 crore.
The situation for AI and the government is dire. Any decision taken now will apply to both the foreign and domestic operations as IA has been merged with AI. The question of surplus employees of AI has not yet been addressed. When the Commission gave its report, the problems were relatively easy to manage. The cost of delay of 10 years has become quite heavy. Mere induction of funds of large amounts of Rs10,000 crore has become bit too heavy. The restructuring of the merged foreign and domestic operations has become more complicated. It is not clear how long AI can manage in both domestic and foreign operations, without major restructuring of foreign and domestic.
It is time for the government to constitute another high level committee with representatives of employees and financial institutions to revisit the recommendations of the Disinvestment Commission and examine the present situation and report within two weeks. It may be possible to unwind and separate AI from IA and with short term government guaranteed support from institutions and offer AI on strategic sale on the lines recommended by the Disinvestment Commission.
The views expressed in the column are by GV Ramakrishna who is the former chairman of Disinvestment Commission, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and former member of the Planning Commission.
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