The performance of the Essar Group during the past ten years has not been good. Although there was a slight recovery to $15 billion in 2022, the revenue decline is unlike any other, going from a peak of $27 billion in 2012 to $13 billion in 2019.
The personal wealth of Shashi and Ravi Ruia, the co-founders of the Mumbai-based group, has
seen a similar slide. In the 2000s, they were regulars in the top 10 of the Forbes India Rich List
of the country’s 100 wealthiest people. But, over the last few years, the two brothers have
slipped down the ranks. They were at 67 in 2020, only to go out of the list altogether in the
subsequent years.
These would have rankled the brothers, who started out in 1969 with a small project in Chennai
and went on to build an empire straddling steel, power, ports and refinery sectors. But it was a
price they were willing to pay for a reset of the group, which despite a decent top line was
bogged down by a mountain of debt. At $25 billion, or Rs 2 lakh crore, it was among the highest
for any business house in the countr.