Essar leads India Inc deleveraging; pays off Rs 1.4 trillion: Prashant Ruia

Leading the India Inc in deleveraging through aggressive monetisation of assets, Essar Group paid off Rs 1.4 trillion debt and residual 10-15 per cent will be cleared in the next two quarters, said Essar Capital Director Prashant Ruia.

“In the last three years, I think we were the first to get off the block and actually take some decisive steps towards reducing leverage. It started with our exit from Essar Oil, which was sold to Rosneft and Trafigura (for a valuation of $12.9 billion).

“This was followed by the exit from Aegis, our BPO business. We did a few more exits and used the proceeds from this monetisation exercise to repay about Rs 1,40,000 crore of debt, which is the largest deleveraging by any Indian corporate,”