NPA default: Big plans came to naught

Eight companies fall under the Rs 350 crore-plus defaulters club of March 31, 2001: the prominent groups being Mesco, S.M. Dyechem and the M...

Eight companies fall under the Rs 350 crore-plus defaulters club of March 31, 2001: the prominent groups being Mesco, S.M. Dyechem and the Modis. These companies have defaults of over Rs 350 crore and upto Rs 500 crore as on March 31, 2001. In most cases, they also raised funds from the capital market at premia.

The topper in this segment is the J.K. Singh-promoted Mesco Group with nearly Rs 500 crore of defaults with eight group companies contributing to it. This is followed by the Altos Group at Rs 437.83 crore. S.M. Shetty’s S.M. Dyechem joins them in Rs 400 crore plus club with Rs 415.41 crore of defaults by end-March, 2001. The Ambalal Sarabhai group had defaults of Rs 397.26 crore, closely followed by K.L. Jain’s Arihant Cotsyn Group with Rs 397.82 crore and Modis with Rs 392.35 crore, with others in their company being Ganapati Exports/Om Prakash Agarwal Group with Rs 372.24 crore and Prakash Industries Ltd of Ved Prakash Agarwal with Rs 360.96 crore.

This is revealed in the third part of the ongoing Financial Express (A part of the Indian Express Group) study on non-performing assets and large borrowal accounts based on data provided by the All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA).

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A major contributor to the Mesco Group’s defaults is its steel company, Mideast Integrated Steels Ltd, with NPAs of Rs 337.37 crore at end-Match 2001. Mideast (India) Ltd is another group company that contributed Rs 94.26 crore of defaults by March 31, 2002. Altos India Ltd had been the major contributor to Altos Group defaults with Rs 325.77 crore out of Rs 437.83 crore. S.M. Dyechem takes the lion’s share of the group’s defaults at Rs 381.67 crore of Rs 415.41 crore.

Arihant Industries had defaulted to banks and FIs to the extent of Rs 240.04 crore out of the group’s defaults of Rs 395.82 crore. Arihant Cotsyn is the other group company that had defaulted Rs 150.56 crore by March 31, 2001.

Though the Modi Group had nearly Rs 400 crore of defaults to banks and FIs, they are spread across 12 companies, with only three companies having more than Rs 50 crore of defaults—Modi Industries with Rs 102.07 crore; Bihar Sponge Iron with Rs 82.46 crore and Modipon Ltd with Rs 57.32 crore.