A firm crumbles in the blink of an eye

This is what practically every shareholder who comes knocking here gets to hear. In Jord’s office on the fifth floor of Vishwanank building in Chakala, Andheri (E), the tenor is polite. The loot-and-scoot people know well that the tempers of those owning their dud shares can get volatile.

Speaking to The Indian Express on phone from Vadodara, Director (technical) T R Anantharaman hems and haws when asked how miscellaneous expenses jumped from Rs 1.91 crore to Rs 23.13 crore in 2001.

For this 14-year-old company with a plant on 40 acres of land some 35 km from Vadodara in Ashoj village, the peak came nine years ago. That was when Jord shares purred along the BSE sensex list at a constant Rs 55.

Vouching for Jord shares, stockbroker Nensi Sheth says: ‘‘Jord was among the safe investments of the Harshad Mehta scam days.’’ Raising money was easy for Jord as those were the times when paper companies floated shares. So Jord stood on high moral ground as compared to the looters of the Nineties. The Rs 33.8 crore that came from shares and debentures went into ventures that banked greatly on sensitive market forces.

In the first half of the Nineties, they sold solid-liquid seperator equipment, vaccum filters, clarifiers and thickners. By 1994, they went in for specialised machines used in gas-fired power generation plants hoping to cash in on the proposed boom in the power sector.

Like the Rs 60 crore Fin tube plant they inaugurated in March 1995. Money came through public issues and debentures. But the power sector blacked out and the orders never came.

Bankers tightened the noose. Then, the re-structuring plans happened. ‘‘But the promoters were not enthusiastic enough,’’ alleges an ICICI official refusing to be named.

Director T R Anantharaman blames it on government policies and market forces.‘‘If the orders don’t come, how can restructuring plans go as scheduled?’’ he asks.

But the fact remains that the regulators were sleeping and the company affairs never came under close scrutiny. When asked, whether the company will close shutters, Anantharam defends: ‘‘Not as long as I am alive. I took it from a five-acre plot to 40 acres. We received three orders last week and we are fighting.’’