Looking for Western India’s Nandan Gadgil? Try Brazil

There is no sign of the Rs 5,000 crore conglomerate. Just a lot of bad debts, investors who have torn and thrown their papers away and an 80-year-old father, Prabhakar Gadgil, who attends close to a 100 court cases on behalf of his son.

Nandan Gadgil’s whirlwind plans ran a company and a good name that was set up in 1928 to the ground. His family—brother, parents, uncles—says they have not been in touch. They are all prepared to meet and talk about the ‘‘the dead fish’’—the Western India Group.

Uncle Avinash Wardekar (70) lives nearby in one of the lanes. Somebody in the house likes the latest silver cars. There are four spotless beauties, all different models, in the driveway.

The retired industrialist sits behind sliding silk panels, with a haunting portrait of his wife on the wall. Nandan was his sister’s son. ‘‘He was into too many projects in too little a time. He would raise pre-project expenses from the public, and put it into a completely different project.’’

In 1982, Gadgil started with Western India Industries that provided turnkey consultancy and project engineering. Five years later, he floated Western Paques for pollution engineering. Then came forays in sugar, petroleum, ship-breaking and repairing, financial services, estates, energy and even condoms.

Former power minister Suresh Prabhu was a director of his group companies, Western India Financial Services Limited. His companies went over the country’s borders to places like Dubai, Bahrain and Singapore. In June 1994, Western India Industries came out with an issue to raise another Rs 142 crore.

Nandan Gadgil floated nearly a dozen companies. In the mid-nineties, all of them collapsed.

Nandan, says his uncle, had the gift of the gab and was amazing at convincing people and financial institutions. ‘‘He was in Delhi. Over there, they know how to make people gullible. He did not want to be in Pune, he wanted to be in Delhi.’’ He had the external affairs ministry agog with plans to do business with Liberia. ‘‘His brother Chandan, an engineer from Goa, was the brains,’’ says the uncle.

Chandan did conceptualise Western Paques, an environmental business that combined non-conventional energy with biotechnology. It did turnkey projects and made money out of waste. Western Paques’ IPO was launched on September 10, 1990. The amount raised was Rs 3.5 crore. It came out with yet another issue in September 1993 to raise Rs 67 crore.

‘‘But I opted out in 1991-’92. Nandan wanted to operate from the Middle-East and I wanted to be here. You can’t operate from remote places even if you hire staff that is professional enough,’’ says Chandan Gadgil.

The Gadgil name was an open sesame for banks. A former chairman of Janata Sahakari Bank, H M Mirasdar, explains how easy it was. Nandan Gadgil and his cousin Avinash Wardekar’s son took Rs 27 crore on bill discounting, a common practice by companies. Though Wardekar’s bit is returning in instalments, the Gadgil capital is unlikely to return.

‘‘The bank’s managing director Dilip Tengshe gave the amount without any security, without informing anybody. He was booked for fraud and his services were terminated,’’ says Mirasdar.

From Vasant Vihar in Delhi, Nandan Gadgil had shifted base to Dubai. His uncle Avinash Wardekar describes how the end came: ‘‘Somebody from the US offered him a useless refinery for $20 million. He could manage just $10 million and lost that. That’s where he lost everything.’’

He was arrested for a weekend in Dubai. The Enforcement Directorate asked the BSE and NSE to clamp down after after detecting violation of FERA and RBI norms.

There is only one company still alive—Western India Shipyard, based in Goa. An ICICI official, who refuses to be named, explains how: ‘‘It had got into a huge problem, primarily because of the sponsors. The promoting company got into a huge litigation. It was a classic case of financial indiscipline and incompetent management. Now, all lenders have appointed their nominees and in the last two years the company has turned a corner. Their loans have been restructured and it is listed on the BSE.’’

Chandan Gadgil, who runs a small software company, insists that his brother did not run away with the money. ‘‘Mismanagement. Too many things. Remote control. He made a lot of mistakes but the intention was not create money and go,’’ he defends his brother.

So why did Nandan run? ‘‘There are too many issues that he can’t clear.’’ The promising son has left the court cases for his elderly father to deal with.