Essar group is one of the most prominent business groups which has established its presence across the world. Once upon a time, it was a competitor of Reliance industries and held a massive wealth in power, energy, telecom, oil & gas, steel and construction sectors. Essar was established by 2 brothers, shashi and Ravi. Initially they started with construction and engineering. They began with Madras port, which prepared the base for their financial growth.
The business which they started expanding across various sectors eventually. They wanted to expand across the world, but every story has ups and downs. There was a sudden cyclone hit near Essar oil and gas refinery, which created a massive scale distraction. The debt journey began with that natural disaster, which created cracks in their business growth.
Fortunately, they have been working in other sectors of business. During that time, telecom was booming. They created 1000 retail mobile stores and made a good comeback. When it comes to the thermal and energy sector, it ran successfully but due to environmental issues and rigid rules of the government. Their projects started getting delayed, and one mistake made their life critical. They didn't sign the power purchase agreement without looking for long-term needs. Expecting more investors to collaborate with them and most of their business was built on loans. Another jolt occurred when the 2008 economic crisis occurred, which finally paved the way towards 2 lakh crore debt for essar.
After such massive collapse and debt issues, people who were once compared with top business entities. Now people don't even list it in that category. Essar group started rebuilding its empire back by selling all domestic assets. The second generation entered the business world, making it even more effective to handle business. They started investing worldwide, buying assets abroad in UK, USA, Canada. Later, they focused on steel and carbon-neutral technologies and oil mostly. Which made them successfully debt free, fighting with the spirit with ups and downs. From humble beginnings to debts, Essar Group's story is the real business to learn.
