Three new investors have surfaced in Reliance Infocomm, according to documents made available on Thursday evening.
These are the only investors with no obvious link to the Reliance group; all three investors are Delhi-based and got Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) of Infocomm stock at face value in September 2002, three months before the company launched operations.
The Reliance 'ownership issue'
The investors are Fairever Traders and Consultants, Softnet Traders and Consultants, and Prerna Auto. In all cases, the owners of the shareholding companies are a husband and wife who invested either Rs 400,000 or Rs 500,000 in equity stock.
In a clear pattern, the three companies issued redeemable preference shares of Rs 35 lakh (Rs 3.5 million) each, with these shares being picked up by a variety of finance companies located at different places in Delhi. The money was used to buy Infocomm stock {either Rs 33 lakh (Rs 3.3 million) or Rs 34 lakh (Rs 3.4 million) in each case}.
All three companies were formed on the same day (16 September), and the equity as well as preference shares were also issued on the same day. The investment in Reliance Infocomm was also made on the same day.
The information relating to these investments became available late in the evening, and it was not possible to check on who exactly these shareholders are, and why they were given Infocomm shares at face value at that stage in the company's history.
From Infocomm's point of view, the money invested by these firms was not significant because Infocomm already had an equity base of Rs 415 crore (Rs 4.15 billion), plus substantial other funding in a variety of ways, running into thousands of crore rupees.
However, the investing companies themselves have hit on a goldmine, because their combined investment of Rs 1 crore is now said to be valued at over Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion).
That all three companies are linked is evident from the fact that some of the finance companies that have invested in the share-owning companies' preference shares have the same address in Delhi.