How Kapil Wadhawan pulled off the DHFL con for a decade

Two government initiatives for the poor were exploited to siphon thousands of crores to entities connected to the mortgage lender’s promoters.

Jayshree P. Upadhyay

Mumbai

07 April 2021

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Kapil Wadhawan was once the darling of the markets and could do no wrong. His company, Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd, was at one point the second biggest mortgage lender after HDFC Ltd, with the loan book of Rs 100,000 crore. Its stock went from Rs 50 in early 2014 to a high of Rs 670 in August 2018. But then everything went off the rails.

In what can only be described as daylight robbery, the former chairman and managing director of the now bankrupt DHFL, took the financial system, along with the government’s subsidy programme, for a ride.

As a business journalist, over time this writer has seen how policies riddled with loopholes are exploited by companies for a little gain here and there. For many businesses navigating India’s complex rules, breaking a few is almost second nature. But, the scale and impunity of the con perpetrated by Wadhawan leaves most in the shade.

Wadhawan’s DHFL exploited a system meant to benefit the most vulnerable sections

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