Sahara, the group of which Roy called himself the Managing Worker, once owned an airline, an F1 team, an IPL team, hotels in London and New York, financial companies, a mutual funds and a life insurance company, the Aamby Valley township outside Pune, and a huge land bank.
Most of these assets are now either under attachment or have been sold to pay back investors.
Fund-raising plan blocked
Sahara’s troubles began after SEBI turned its lens on more than Rs 24,000 crore collected from 3 crore individuals through Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd (SHICL) and Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd (SIRECL) on Optionally Fully Convertible Debentures issued by the two companies. In 2010, SEBI ordered Sahara to refund the money to investors, and banned the two Sahara companies and Roy from raising money from the public.
In 2014, it was reported that only 4,600 investors came forward to collect the refund. SEBI was unable to trace the rest of the investors.
On March 4 of that year, Roy was sent to jail for contempt in not depositing a a sum of Rs 10,000 crore with SEBI. The Supreme Court ordered that he would not be released until he brought in Rs 5,000 crore in cash and Rs 5,000 crore by way of bank guarantee.
In 2013, Sahara sent 127 trucks containing 31,669 cartons full of more than 3 crore application forms, and 2 crore redemption vouchers to the SEBI office.
Loss of hotels to pay SEBI
Despite the regulatory ban on the group’s core business of fund mobilisation from small retail investors, Sahara bought three overseas hotels, Grosvenor House in London, and the New York Plaza and Dream New York hotels in New York, in 2010.
Sahara chief Subrata Roy arrives to appear in the Supreme Court for a hearing in a case against him filed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) over a dispute of returning money to its investors, in New Delhi. (Express archives)
In 2017, however, the group sold its stake in Grosvenor House for £575 million to clear its dues to SEBI. The Plaza Hotel, one of New York’s most iconic buildings, was fully acquired by a fund owned by the Qatari government for about $600 million, and Dream New York was sold as well.
The group still operates the Sahara Star hotel near the Mumbai airport.
Realty projects across India
In 2013, following a direction by the Supreme Court, SEBI ordered attachment of all properties and bank accounts of the Sahara group and its top executives, including Subrata Roy, and gave HDFC Realty and SBI Capital Markets the mandate to auction 60 Sahara properties in multiple states from Uttarakhand to Kerala and Gujarat to Assam.
There is no official word on whether the auctioneers succeeded in selling the land and realising the expected amounts. Most of these assets are under litigation, and may not have had many takers, a market source said.
Aamby Valley auction stalled
Out of Sahara’s total land bank of 33,633 acres, Aamby Valley in the scenic Sahyadri mountains near Lonavala, accounts for 10,600 acres. In 2018, the Supreme Court allowed the Sahara group to sell the Aamby Valley township, spread over 6,700 acres in Pune district, in parts through a court-appointed liquidator.
The auction began in August 2018 with the liquidator inviting bids at a reserve price of Rs 37,392 crore, but the process has not succeeded. In 2023, the Supreme Court rejected a plea by Sahara to lift the attachment of the Aamby Valley project and to allow it to sell 26 per cent stake to Royal Partners Investment Fund for $1.6 billion.
Air Sahara sold to Jet
Sahara India Airlines began operations on December 3, 1993, and was rebranded as Air Sahara in 2000. As losses mounted, however, Jet Airways Ltd took over its smaller rival for Rs 1,450 crore in 2007, and subsequently rechristened it JetLite.
Vijay Mallya (R), co-owner of the Force India Formula One team, and Sahara Group Chairman Subrata Roy shake hands at a news conference in New Delhi. (Express archives)
Sahara later filed a petition claiming that Jet had defaulted on the instalment amount, and it was, therefore, liable to pay the original deal amount of Rs 2,000 crore and not the re-negotiated amount of Rs 1,450 crore.
Jet’s troubled acquisition of Air Sahara was one of the reasons for its own collapse.
Crash of Formula 1 dream
In 2011, Sahara decided to put in $100 million for the development of the F1 racing team Sahara Force India. The Sahara group was to be issued fresh shares of Watson Limited, which owned the team, and liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Roy’s group would own 42.5 per cent each, with the remaining 15 per cent equity staying with the family of the Dutch businessman Michiel Mol.
The F1 dream didn’t last long. In August 2018, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the governing body for F1, announced that Sahara Force India had become Racing Point Force India after an asset sale by administrators to a consortium led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll.
MF business fails to take off
Sahara’s plans in mutual funds also didn’t work out. In July 2015, SEBI cancelled the registration of Sahara Mutual Fund saying it was no longer “fit and proper” to carry out this business, and ordered the transfer of its operations to another fund house.
Sahara was then one of the smallest fund houses with just Rs 134 crore assets under management. The regulator also cancelled Sahara’s portfolio management licence.
Insurance arm in legal mess
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI) gave Sahara India Life Insurance a Certificate of Registration in 2004 to transact the business of life insurance. On December 30, 2020, the regulator issued an order saying Sahara India Life was no longer a “fit and proper” promoter, and that the shareholding of the promoters should be transferred to any other “fit and proper” promoter within six months. Following certain questions of financial propriety and governance, IRDAI had appointed an administrator to manage the insurer’s business in 2017.
In June 2023, the Securities Appellate Tribunal stayed IRDAI’s order directing the transfer of policy liabilities of around 2 lakh policies along with the assets of Sahara group firm to SBI Life Insurance Company.
Sahara, the group of which Subrata Roy called himself the Managing Worker, once owned an airline, an F1 team, an IPL team, hotels in London and New York, financial companies, a mutual funds and a life insurance company, the Aamby Valley township outside Pune, and a huge land bank. (Express archives) 
Sahara chief Subrata Roy arrives to appear in the Supreme Court for a hearing in a case against him filed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) over a dispute of returning money to its investors, in New Delhi. (Express archives)
Vijay Mallya (R), co-owner of the Force India Formula One team, and Sahara Group Chairman Subrata Roy shake hands at a news conference in New Delhi. (Express archives)
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