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Over the past 35 years,
Subrata Roy has built an empire that at the end of
2012 was valued at $11 billion by collecting amounts as small as 32
cents every day from rickshaw pullers, laundry
washers and tire repairmen. Photographer:
Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg
New York Plaza Owner Seeks to Use Prison
for Sale Negotiations
By Bhuma Shrivastava and Pratap Patnaik
July 25, 2014 2:42 PM EDT
Subrata Roy, the jailed owner of the Sahara
India Pariwar financial-services group, sought
court permission to use his prison’s guest
house to negotiate the sale of overseas hotels
as he seeks to pay his 100-billion-rupee ($1.66
billion) bail.
Roy, 66, who has been in court-ordered
custody since March, is seeking secretarial
assistance, phone, video conferencing and
others facilities for discussions to sell stakes in
the Plaza and Dreams Downtown hotels in New
York and the Grosvenor House in London,
according to a court filing on July 24.
He also wants to be relocated within New
Delhi’s Tihar prison to an outer building with a
separate entrance, to ensure confidentiality for
prospective buyers and protect them from the
“glare of media, rival competitors and other
inmates,” the filing said, citing the need for “a
congenial atmosphere.”
Roy also wants access to three secretaries
around the clock, so that a negotiations with
prospective buyers in India and across five
time zones can proceed quickly, the filing said.
“We should provide facilities to Roy to arrange
money for bail,” Judge T S Thakur said at a
hearing in New Delhi on the request yesterday.
“It isn’t a small amount. We can’t keep him in
jail and ask him to pay money. International
buyers would be interested in these assets,”
Thakur said.
The judge asked the government to reply to
Roy’s request by Aug. 1, indicating what
facilities it is willing to provide. Roy was earlier
denied a 50-day bail to negotiate the sale of
the hotels.
Poonawalla
Pune-based billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, owner
of the world’s biggest vaccine maker Serum
Institute of India, has offered 550 million
pounds ($933 million) for the Grosvenor
House, the Economic Times newspaper reported
July 24.
The filing is the latest effort by the Sahara
group founder to secure his release. Tihar
prison is the largest correctional facility in
South Asia.
Roy’s arrest at the end of February came as
part of a almost four-year dispute between the
shadow financier and India’s securities
regulator, which had faulted Sahara for selling
a convertible debt instrument without its
approval. Roy had been seeking to convince the
court that Sahara has complied with an order
to refund 240 billion rupees that it raised from
30 million depositors.
Sahara, which means “support” in Hindi, owns
overseas hotel properties and at least 120
companies, including television stations, a
hospital, a dairy farm, retail shops selling
products from detergents to diamonds and a
stake in India’s only Formula One racing team.
It also claims to own 14,600 hectares (36,000
acres) of land, an area the size of Liechtenstein.
Shadow Banking
The financier, who calls himself “Sahara Sri”
and started out in 1978 collecting deposits
from doorsteps, is part of the $670 billion
shadow-banking industry in Asia’s third-largest
economy that regulators are increasingly
cracking down on.
Over the past 35 years, Roy has built an empire
that at the end of 2012 was valued at $11
billion by collecting amounts as small as 32
cents every day from rickshaw pullers, laundry
washers and tire repairmen.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bhuma
Shrivastava in Mumbai at
[email protected]; Pratap Patnaik in
New Delhi at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this
story: Arijit Ghosh at [email protected]
d*ck Schumacher New York Plaza Owner Seeks to Use Prison for Sale Negotiations - Businessweek
Subrata Roy has built an empire that at the end of
2012 was valued at $11 billion by collecting amounts as small as 32
cents every day from rickshaw pullers, laundry
washers and tire repairmen. Photographer:
Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg
New York Plaza Owner Seeks to Use Prison
for Sale Negotiations
By Bhuma Shrivastava and Pratap Patnaik
July 25, 2014 2:42 PM EDT
Subrata Roy, the jailed owner of the Sahara
India Pariwar financial-services group, sought
court permission to use his prison’s guest
house to negotiate the sale of overseas hotels
as he seeks to pay his 100-billion-rupee ($1.66
billion) bail.
Roy, 66, who has been in court-ordered
custody since March, is seeking secretarial
assistance, phone, video conferencing and
others facilities for discussions to sell stakes in
the Plaza and Dreams Downtown hotels in New
York and the Grosvenor House in London,
according to a court filing on July 24.
He also wants to be relocated within New
Delhi’s Tihar prison to an outer building with a
separate entrance, to ensure confidentiality for
prospective buyers and protect them from the
“glare of media, rival competitors and other
inmates,” the filing said, citing the need for “a
congenial atmosphere.”
Roy also wants access to three secretaries
around the clock, so that a negotiations with
prospective buyers in India and across five
time zones can proceed quickly, the filing said.
“We should provide facilities to Roy to arrange
money for bail,” Judge T S Thakur said at a
hearing in New Delhi on the request yesterday.
“It isn’t a small amount. We can’t keep him in
jail and ask him to pay money. International
buyers would be interested in these assets,”
Thakur said.
The judge asked the government to reply to
Roy’s request by Aug. 1, indicating what
facilities it is willing to provide. Roy was earlier
denied a 50-day bail to negotiate the sale of
the hotels.
Poonawalla
Pune-based billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, owner
of the world’s biggest vaccine maker Serum
Institute of India, has offered 550 million
pounds ($933 million) for the Grosvenor
House, the Economic Times newspaper reported
July 24.
The filing is the latest effort by the Sahara
group founder to secure his release. Tihar
prison is the largest correctional facility in
South Asia.
Roy’s arrest at the end of February came as
part of a almost four-year dispute between the
shadow financier and India’s securities
regulator, which had faulted Sahara for selling
a convertible debt instrument without its
approval. Roy had been seeking to convince the
court that Sahara has complied with an order
to refund 240 billion rupees that it raised from
30 million depositors.
Sahara, which means “support” in Hindi, owns
overseas hotel properties and at least 120
companies, including television stations, a
hospital, a dairy farm, retail shops selling
products from detergents to diamonds and a
stake in India’s only Formula One racing team.
It also claims to own 14,600 hectares (36,000
acres) of land, an area the size of Liechtenstein.
Shadow Banking
The financier, who calls himself “Sahara Sri”
and started out in 1978 collecting deposits
from doorsteps, is part of the $670 billion
shadow-banking industry in Asia’s third-largest
economy that regulators are increasingly
cracking down on.
Over the past 35 years, Roy has built an empire
that at the end of 2012 was valued at $11
billion by collecting amounts as small as 32
cents every day from rickshaw pullers, laundry
washers and tire repairmen.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bhuma
Shrivastava in Mumbai at
[email protected]; Pratap Patnaik in
New Delhi at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this
story: Arijit Ghosh at [email protected]
d*ck Schumacher New York Plaza Owner Seeks to Use Prison for Sale Negotiations - Businessweek
