The life & afterlife of businesses; Insolvency–Restructuring–Transformation
A restructuring professional and corporate historian — exploring India's business past and the stamps that carried its mail
A Brief Introduction
An attempt to distil lessons - what endures, what changes, and what practitioners often overlook
I write articles and papers about restructuring, insolvency, transformation, and interim management, not merely as a practitioner, but also as a chronicler of how enterprises evolve, fragment, and sometimes re-emerge. This website is an exploration of that space.
Across jurisdictions and eras, familiar patterns emerge, overexpansion, excessive leverage, governance lapses, technological disruptions, flawed succession plans, and, now and then, bold reinvention. Outcomes hinge on a potent mix of human psychology, financial acumen, legal ingenuity, and the broader environment that determines whether value is preserved or destroyed.
Corporate history offers vivid glimpses of these cycles, long a staple of business-school case studies. The historical corporate stories below illustrate a sobering truth: whether one searches for excellence, builds to last, or strives to move from good to great, eventually everything regresses to the mean. Some enterprises vanish entirely; others linger as faded echoes, swept by waves of Schumpeterian creative destruction.
Philosophically, the Bhagavad Gita reminds us of all material things' impermanence; a timeless lesson echoed in the rises and falls of stalwarts like David Sassoon, the Volkart Brothers, and Cowasjee Dinshawjee. Their legacies underscore how even vast fortunes and empires prove transient.
A Stroll Through History: Sagas of Rise, Fall, AND Revival
Banking and Finance
Agra and The United Service Bank,
Allahabad Bank (now Indian Bank),
Bank of Bengal (now State Bank of India),
Bank of Bombay (now State Bank of India),
Eastern Bank (now Standard Chartered Bank),
Grindlays Bank (now Standard Chartered Bank),
Mercantile Bank of India (now Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi),
National Bank of India (now Standard Chartered Bank),
Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank (now ABN AMRO),
Ottoman Bank (now Garanti BBVA),
Société the Credit Suisse (Government intervention led the bank to UBS fold),
Standard Bank of South Africa (now Standard Chartered Bank),
Conglomerate and Trading
Ralli Brothers (offshoot survives as Rallis India and parts of business got merged into Cargill Inc. and Dexia Group),
Volkart Bros (offshoots of the empire survive in Voltas India, EDF & Man, and Paul Reinhart Ltd.)
Hospitality
The Hotz Hotel (parts survive as Oberoi Hotels (EIH Ltd.) and Hotel Gables),
Sylk’s Hotel (now Savoy, Ooty).
Infrastructure and Industrials
Oil & Gas
Orient Gas Company (now Greater Calcutta Gas Supply Corporation),
Standard Vacuum Oil Company (now Hindustan Petroleum Company Ltd).
