NEW DELHI: Erstwhile promoters of Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises Shivinder and Malvinder Singh on Thursday blamed former Religare CEO & MD Sunil Godhwani for leading the group into deep debt.
In a joint statement, the brothers said they had reposted trust in Godhwani to manage the group after they sold India’s largest pharmaceutical maker Ranbaxy Laboratories to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo. The 2008 sale saw the group receive around Rs 9,576 crore in cash. Just eight years later, the promoters were saddled with Rs 13,000 crore debt. In their statement, they allege that “the Group’s troubles today stem from its association with Mr Sunil Godhwani”.
“(He) started his association in Religare as its CEO in 2001. By most accounts he had led the growth of the organisation successfully till 2007 when it went public. He thereafter led and negotiated the Ranbaxy sale in 2008. Thus, by late 2008, the promoters had basis to trust Mr Godhwani given his performance in Religare and as a trusted senior of the Group,” the brothers said, going on to claim that this had led them to decide that Godhwani would lead the family office. “... and from end 2008, he had full management control of RHC Holding and its subsidiaries,” they said.
However, the brother duo claim that Godhwani had instead “used his position to conceive and orchestrate a series of transactions over the better part of a decade that led to (the) Group’s debt load by 2016”.
The two brothers, however, have not responded to specific questions regarding loans of nearly Rs 2,700 crore to firms and associates of the family of Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the spiritual Guru of the Radha Soami Satsang Beas, only saying that “relationship with Mr Dhillon remains that of a spiritual master and a disciple”.