BR Shetty owes $250m in loans to India’s Bank of Baroda
The Bank of Baroda has filed a case against NMC founder BR Shetty and his companies as India’s third largest public sector bank seeks to recover $253 million in loans, according to documents seen by Arabian Business and dated May 16.
An Indian court has forbidden BR Shetty and his wife from selling or transferring some properties for the duration of the court case, including 16 properties in India, and which were put up by the founder and his wife against the loans. The next hearing is slated for June 8.
The billionaire flew to India in March as legal problems continued to mount in NMC, which disclosed in the same month that it had debts of $6.6 billion. It was placed into administration by a London court in April after succumbing to creditor demands.
Banks in the UAE have also been exposed to the country’s largest private healthcare operator, with state-owned Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank owed $963m, Dubai Islamic Bank owed $541m, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank owed $325m and Barclays owed $146m.
BR Shetty was one of the first Indians to make his fortune in the UAE’s healthcare industry when he set up NMC Health in the 1970s and grew it to become the country’s largest operator of its kind before listing it on the London Stock Exchange in 2012. Its market value had soared to over $10bn before its financial turmoil.
