Sahara’s breathtaking investor base

Sucheta Dalal

The Sahara group, in a battle with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), continues to spew startling numbers with aplomb. According to media reports, the group has filed an affidavit which says Sahara India Real Estate Corporation, an unlisted realty company, raised Rs19,000 crore from 22 million investors through optionally fully convertible debentures (OFCDs).

Another group company, Sahara Housing Investment Corporation, had yet to disclose the details at the time of going to press. In effect, Sahara’s investor base, in just one company, is nearly thrice India’s total investor population which was put at eight million by the D Swarup Committee in 2010 (including mutual fund investors). Yet, as we have often said, Sahara has the most faceless and docile bunch of investors in the country. As a business journalist for 27 years, I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who has invested in Sahara. If you look at official data on geographical dispersal of investors, Mumbai accounts for nearly 60% of the national figure. Frankly, if the numbers are what Sahara claims, then the companies must be automatically under strict SEBI regulation, irrespective of their unlisted status. The capital market regulator was set up precisely to monitor such entities very closely.