Stress Reliever

He has been buying stressed assets across the world for the last five years. Now NRI Sanjeev Gupta has turned to India. Who is this man and will he succeed?

- Nevin John

THE MAN AND HIS COMPANY have repeatedly been in the news in recent months, as the process of selling off stressed assets under the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) – passed in May 2016 – gathers steam. When bids were invited for shipbuilding company ABG Shipyard, Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty House was the only company to respond, even raising its offer to ₹5,600 crore when the initial bid was rejected as too low. Liberty House was the higher of the two bidders for auto parts maker Amtek Auto, quoting ₹4,334 crore, as it was for steel manufacturer Adhunik Metaliks.

Liberty House entered the fray for Bhushan Steel after the bid deadline but with an offer of ₹18,500 crore. Though it was substantially larger than the second highest bid of Tata Steel at ₹17,000 crore, it was rejected as it came after the deadline. The proposed acquisitions are all facing hurdles, notably because it emerged that Liberty House owed Exim Bank around $2.8 million and was thus liable for disqualification under Section 29A of the IBC – though Gupta insists he has since paid up – but there is no doubt that both Gupta and Liberty House suddenly loom large over India’s business landscape.

Who is Sanjeev Gupta? He is a 47-year-old NRI billionaire, headquartered in the UK, whose Liberty House, part of the conglomerate called Gupta Family Group (GFG) Alliance, has been making an astonishing series of acquisitions of loss-making companies over the past five years. The assets range from the UK and France to Australia, encompassing the US. “We have taken over around 50 assets investing $3 billion since 2013,” Gupta told Business Today.