To buy 58.46% stake in SpiceJet, Ajay Singh paid only ₹2 in 2015 to Kalanithi Maran and his investment company Kal Airways Pvt. Ltd. This was the first time in Indian history, that company has been sold for less than ₹5. The deal was fixed in 15 days only and the acquirer exempted from the mandatory open offer to public shareholders. According to the Bloomberg report, this fact has been disclosed during the Delhi High Court’s judgement in a dispute between the two over convertible securities.
According to the report, none of this information was disclosed by Singh, SpiceJet at the time of the transaction. Neither did market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) insist on a disclosure.
Before two-and-a-half years, when SpiceJet was not acquired by Ajay Singh, the airline was grounded as it was not able to pay a mere ₹14.2 crore in fuel bills. But now it has become the world’s best-performing airline stock. The stock is up 124% in 2017 and has gained more than 600% since December 2014.
The credit for this turn around goes to the company’s co-founder and chairman Ajay Singh. He injected capital, cut loss-making routes and aggressively added capacity.