SKNL named a major defaulter on bank loan

SKNL or S Kumars Nationwide owes Rs 3,000 crores to

state-owned banks, this has forced UCO Bank to publish chairman Nitin Kasliwal's photos in national dailies as a defaulter. In May this year, Kolkata-based UCO Bank zeroed on Nitin Kasliwal, Chairman of S Kumars Nationwide. The bank published his pictures in leading newspapers, as a defaulter on an Rs 110-crores loan. The loan was taken by Reid & Taylor and Kasliwal was a guarantor. It was the first time any bank had published the picture of an industrialist who’d defaulted on a loan. The government-owned banks regularly publish picture of small loan defaulters in newspapers but have seldom touched big ones.

A list of prominent defaulters published by the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) last week identified S Kumars Nationwide as one of the top ones. The company owes close to Rs 3,000 crores to government-owned banks, it appears.

The move came after finance minister P Chidambaram said while many companies were getting sick, their promoters remained rich. Indian banks have written off corporate loans worth Rs 1 lakh crores in the past 13 years, according to the Reserve Bank of India.

For the Kasliwals, the fall from one of Mumbai’s leading business families to a loan defaulter is a case study of lost opportunities. The group was set up in 1948 by two brothers, Abhayakumar Kasliwal and Shambhukumar Kasliwal. Abhayakumar's sons, Ambuj and Warij, and Shambhukumar ‘s children, Vikas, Nitin and Mukul, decided to split in 2008. By the agreement Nitin received S Kumars Nationwide. But SKNL, which once hired filmstar Amitabh Bachchan as brand ambassador for its Reid & Taylor brand, soon started bleeding. For 2012-13, the company incurred Rs 414 crores loss on revenue of Rs 3,395 crores, as compared to a profit of Rs 179 crores in 2011-12 on revenue of Rs 3,512 crores.