‘Rakesh Gangwal Limited His Financial Risks In IndiGo’ Says IGE

New Delhi: InterGlobe Enterprises (IGE), a promoter of IndiGo, said on Sunday that Rakesh Gangwal has always limited his financial risk in the airline and also alleged that he pushed for selling the business at difficult times.

In a bid to counter co-promoter Gangwal’s recent allegations of “collapsing” corporate governance in the company, IGE, which is owned by Rahul Bhatia, has so far issued three statements in the past week.

“Rahul Bhatia invited Gangwal, an industry professional, to join as an investor as the two had known each other for a long time. The understanding with Gangwal was that the IGE Group and Gangwal would hold just about equal equity. Gangwal wanted to limit his financial risk to no more than Rs 15 crore,” IGE said in a statement isued on Sunday.

“The IGE Group would have invested more equity, but given that Gangwal did not have the appetite to invest more, IndiGo’s paid up equity capital was pegged at Rs 30 crore, the minimum required by regulations. Rakesh Gangwal Group (the RG Group) — described as investor in the shareholders agreement — acquired from IGE 149,950 equity shares (which represented about 50 per cent of the equity) at par value in May 2016,” the statement said.

It further said that during the intitial phase of IndiGo in 2005 when conversation with Airbus for acquisition of aircraft was underway and Airbus wanted both IGE and Gangwal to give a joint undertaking of support to IndiGo, IGE and Gangwal undertook to invest in IndiGo an amount of “not less than” $50 million (which then converted to about Rs 200 crore). They further undertook to maintain that investment until the delivery of the last aircraft, the statement said. (IANS)

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