Reliance’s Future gamble blows up in its face

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Editor's note: The 18-month battle over the biggest merger and acquisition in India’s modern retail came to an abrupt end last Saturday and the optics suggest that Reliance Industries Ltd has emerged as the only winner in the entire saga.  Future Retail Ltd, the flagship of the Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group, which Reliance made a bid to acquire along with other assets in September 2020 for Rs 24,713 crore, is a step closer to being declared bankrupt. The world’s largest e-commerce player Amazon will also stand to lose the Rs 1,431 crore it invested in the group in 2019.  The creditors, mostly public sector banks, face the prospect of having to take a big haircut on the Rs 21,000 crore owed to them, while Future Retail’s employees and shareholders will get next to nothing.  Reliance, on the other hand, has already surreptitiously acquired over 900 of Future’s stores, hired many of its employees and plans to rebuild the business without actually paying a dime for it. In fact, it was Reliance that drew the curtains on the 2020 deal, saying it “cannot …