Investor responds to 'Open letter to Anil Ambani on his birthday'

In response to 'Open letter to Anil Ambani on his birthday', published on June 4, an investor has sought to counter and clarify in a letter.

Chartered Accountant Narayann Toshnewal has written that in two of Anil Ambani's flagship companies, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power, debt has been reduced substantially over the last eighteen months. "The result of this has been seen in the stock market rally of the share of both these companies, which has risen by more than 100% in the last six weeks. This is a recognition by the market that both these companies are in a robust turnaround phase," he wrote.

On suggestion about merging Reliance Communications with Jio, Toshnewal said it is a prerogative of the IBC and nothing to do with Anil Ambani. "Reliance Communication went into decline with many other older and bigger operators like Vodafone, Idea, Airtel and Aircel, not to mention Telenor and Sistema with Jio's offer of free phones, free talk-time and free data, when it entered the market. The result is that only one monopolistic player remains destroying the net-worth of other players in the telecom sector," he wrote.

On personal guarantees, Toshnewal wrote, "Personal guarantees by other entrepreneurs and promoters like Anil were given to be used in project development of existing businesses. Even in this, while Anil's personal guarantees amounted to INR 1000 crores, while that of other entrepreneurs who gave personal guarantees feature Dewan Housing Finance’s Kapil Wadhawan Rs. 79,344 crore, Punj Lloyd founder Atul Punj Rs 4,900 crore, Bhushan Power and Steel chairman Sanjay Singhal Rs 12,275 crore and his wife Aarti Singhal Rs12,275 crore, Videocon Industries’ founder Venugopal Dhoot Rs 22, 036 crore, Lanco Infratech's Madhusudhan Rao and family Rs 5,253 crore, IVRCL's Sudhir Reddy Rs 7,058 crore, Jatin Mehta of Winsome Diamonds Rs 6,185 crore and Coastal Projects company's Sabbineni Surendra of Rs 2,130 crore."