10th October 2011,Monday
Harshad Shantila Mehta was an Indian stockbroker. He is alleged to have engineered the rise in the BSE stock exchange in 1992. Exploiting several loopholes in the banking system, Mehta and his associates siphoned off funds from inter-bank transactions and bought shares heavily at a premium across many segments, triggering a rise in the Sensex. When the scheme was exposed, banks started demanding their money back, causing the collapse. He was later charged with 72 criminal offenses, and more than 600 civil action suits were filed against him. Mehta died in 2002 with many litigations still pending against him.
Mehta gradually rose to become a stock broker on the Bombay Stock Exchange and had an expensive lifestyle. He lived in a 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) apartment, which had a swimming pool as well as a golf patch. By 1990, Mehta had risen to prominence in the stock market. He was buying shares heavily. The shares which attracted attention were those of Associated Cement Company (ACC). The price of ACC was bid up to Rs 10,000. When asked, Mehta used the replacement cost theory as an explanation. .
Through the second half of 1991 Mehta had earned the sobriquet of the ‘Big Bull’, because he was said to have started the bull run. On April 23, 1992, journalist Sucheta Dalal exposed Mehta's illegal methods in a column in The Times of India. Mehta was dipping illegally into the banking system to finance his buying. The authors explain: “The crucial mechanism through which the scam was effected was the ready forward (RF) deal. The RF is in essence a secured short-term (typically 15-day) loan from one bank to another. Crudely put, the bank lends against government securities just as a pawnbroker lends against jeweller. The borrowing bank actually sells the securities to the lending bank and buys them back at the end of the period of the loan, typically at a slightly higher price.” It was this ready forward deal that Mehta and his accomplices used with great success to channel money from the banking system.
A typical ready forward deal involved two banks brought together by a broker in lieu of a commission. The broker handles neither the cash nor the securities, though that wasn’t the case in the lead-up to the scam. “In this settlement process, deliveries of securities and payments were made through the broker. That is, the seller handed over the securities to the broker, who passed them to the buyer, while the buyer gave the cheque to the broker, who then made the payment to the seller. In this settlement process, the buyer and the seller might not even know whom they had traded with, either being known only to the broker.” This the brokers could manage primarily because by now they had become market makers and had started trading on their account. To keep up a semblance of legality, they pretended to be undertaking the transactions on behalf of a bank.
Another instrument used was the bank receipt (BR). In a ready forward deal, securities were not moved back and forth in actuality. Instead, the borrower, i.e., the seller of securities, gave the buyer of the securities a BR. As the authors write, a BR “confirms the sale of securities. It acts as a receipt for the money received by the selling bank. Hence the name - bank receipt. It promises to deliver the securities to the buyer. It also states that in the mean time, the seller holds the securities in trust of the buyer.”
Having figured out his scheme, Mehta needed banks which issued fake BRs, or BRs not backed by any government securities. “Two small and little known banks - the Bank of Karad (BOK) and the Metropolitan Co-operative Bank (MCB) - came in handy for this purpose. These banks were willing to issue BRs as and when required, for a fee,” the authors point out. Once these fake BRs were issued, they were passed on to other banks and the banks in turn gave money to Mehta, assuming that they were lending against government securities when this was not really the case. This money was used to drive up the prices of stocks in the stock market. When time came to return the money, the shares were sold for a profit and the BR was retired. The money due to the bank was returned.
The game went on as long as the stock prices kept going up, and no one had a clue about Mehta’s modus operandi. Once the scam was exposed, though, a lot of banks were left holding BRs which did not have any value - the banking system had been swindled of a whopping Rs 4,000 crore. When the scam was revealed, the Chairman of the Vijaya Bank committed suicide by jumping from the office roof. He knew that he would be accused if people came to know about his involvement in issuing cheques to Mehta.
Mehta made a brief comeback as a stock market guru, giving tips on his own website as well as a weekly newspaper column. This time around, he was working with owners of a few companies and recommended only the shares of those companies. This game, too, did not last long.[1]
By the time he died, Mehta had been convicted in only one of the many cases filed against him.
Harshad Shantila Mehta was an Indian stockbroker. He is alleged to have engineered the rise in the BSE stock exchange in 1992. Exploiting several loopholes in the banking system, Mehta and his associates siphoned off funds from inter-bank transactions and bought shares heavily at a premium across many segments, triggering a rise in the Sensex. When the scheme was exposed, banks started demanding their money back, causing the collapse. He was later charged with 72 criminal offenses, and more than 600 civil action suits were filed against him. Mehta died in 2002 with many litigations still pending against him.
Mehta gradually rose to become a stock broker on the Bombay Stock Exchange and had an expensive lifestyle. He lived in a 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) apartment, which had a swimming pool as well as a golf patch. By 1990, Mehta had risen to prominence in the stock market. He was buying shares heavily. The shares which attracted attention were those of Associated Cement Company (ACC). The price of ACC was bid up to Rs 10,000. When asked, Mehta used the replacement cost theory as an explanation. .
Through the second half of 1991 Mehta had earned the sobriquet of the ‘Big Bull’, because he was said to have started the bull run. On April 23, 1992, journalist Sucheta Dalal exposed Mehta's illegal methods in a column in The Times of India. Mehta was dipping illegally into the banking system to finance his buying. The authors explain: “The crucial mechanism through which the scam was effected was the ready forward (RF) deal. The RF is in essence a secured short-term (typically 15-day) loan from one bank to another. Crudely put, the bank lends against government securities just as a pawnbroker lends against jeweller. The borrowing bank actually sells the securities to the lending bank and buys them back at the end of the period of the loan, typically at a slightly higher price.” It was this ready forward deal that Mehta and his accomplices used with great success to channel money from the banking system.
A typical ready forward deal involved two banks brought together by a broker in lieu of a commission. The broker handles neither the cash nor the securities, though that wasn’t the case in the lead-up to the scam. “In this settlement process, deliveries of securities and payments were made through the broker. That is, the seller handed over the securities to the broker, who passed them to the buyer, while the buyer gave the cheque to the broker, who then made the payment to the seller. In this settlement process, the buyer and the seller might not even know whom they had traded with, either being known only to the broker.” This the brokers could manage primarily because by now they had become market makers and had started trading on their account. To keep up a semblance of legality, they pretended to be undertaking the transactions on behalf of a bank.
Another instrument used was the bank receipt (BR). In a ready forward deal, securities were not moved back and forth in actuality. Instead, the borrower, i.e., the seller of securities, gave the buyer of the securities a BR. As the authors write, a BR “confirms the sale of securities. It acts as a receipt for the money received by the selling bank. Hence the name - bank receipt. It promises to deliver the securities to the buyer. It also states that in the mean time, the seller holds the securities in trust of the buyer.”
Having figured out his scheme, Mehta needed banks which issued fake BRs, or BRs not backed by any government securities. “Two small and little known banks - the Bank of Karad (BOK) and the Metropolitan Co-operative Bank (MCB) - came in handy for this purpose. These banks were willing to issue BRs as and when required, for a fee,” the authors point out. Once these fake BRs were issued, they were passed on to other banks and the banks in turn gave money to Mehta, assuming that they were lending against government securities when this was not really the case. This money was used to drive up the prices of stocks in the stock market. When time came to return the money, the shares were sold for a profit and the BR was retired. The money due to the bank was returned.
The game went on as long as the stock prices kept going up, and no one had a clue about Mehta’s modus operandi. Once the scam was exposed, though, a lot of banks were left holding BRs which did not have any value - the banking system had been swindled of a whopping Rs 4,000 crore. When the scam was revealed, the Chairman of the Vijaya Bank committed suicide by jumping from the office roof. He knew that he would be accused if people came to know about his involvement in issuing cheques to Mehta.
Mehta made a brief comeback as a stock market guru, giving tips on his own website as well as a weekly newspaper column. This time around, he was working with owners of a few companies and recommended only the shares of those companies. This game, too, did not last long.[1]
By the time he died, Mehta had been convicted in only one of the many cases filed against him.
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