The police have detained 12 suspects in the Paul Muthoot George murder case and say they are close to a breakthrough.
Paul, 30, who was heading the Muthoot M George Group’s hospitality business, was killed on Friday night on the Alappuzha-Changanassery road. A friend with him was injured and is in hospital; both were stabbed.
The Muthoot Group is a major player in the financial services business in Kerala and has been slowly expanding its reach to other parts of the country. Paul is the chairman’s second son.
The police is yet to ascertain the motive behind the murder, though media reports had suggested business rivalry could be a reason. Involvement of persons related to the narcotics trade was also not being ruled out. A team led by the IGP, Ernakulam Range, Vinson Paul, is interrogating the suspects.
The dead man and his friend were found by the roadside on Friday night. The vehicle they were travelling in was missing. The vehicle, a Ford Endeavour, was found abandoned this morning at Kollam, 40 km away.
The unlisted 122-year-old group, which has diversified into information technology, media, plantations and metals, is managed by a board comprising four family members – George Jacob Muthoot, George Thomas Muthoot, George Alexander Muthoot (Managing Director) and M G George Muthoot (Chairman).
Paul, who was based in Delhi, had recently returned to Kerala to take charge of the leisure and hospitality arm.
Muthoot Leisure and Hospitality, one of the 18 group companies of the Rs 20,000-crore group, has two properties located at Thekkady in Idukki district (south Kerala) and Alappuzha and also runs 10 luxurious house boats in the backwaters of Kuttanad in Alappuzha district. The company, with a turnover of around Rs 10 crore, is in the process of setting up several hotels and resorts and has zeroed in on Kochi, Chennai and Hyderabad for new projects.
The hospitality arm had acquired land in Kochi for a proposed Rs 200 crore five-star hote expected to be commissioned in 18 months. A beach resort in Mararikulam and a resort in the backwaters were the other elements of the group’s plans in Kerala.
Paul was returning from an under-construction resort at Mararikulam when he was stabbed to death.
Police sources said two notorious criminals based out of Thiruvananthapuram, Rajesh and Omprakash, are suspected to have been involved. The police say Paul and his friend had driven in the Ford Endeavour and Paul’s driver, Shibu, was asked to follow in another vehicle. The driver is said to have found the two on the roadside, the vehicle missing.
With 1,200 branches, Muthoot Finance, a non-banking finance company, is the group’s flagship company. While the latest financial numbers were unavailable, the group reported a net profit of Rs 63.6 crore for the year ended March 2008. Thanks to its focus on extending loans against gold, 97.2 per cent of Muthoot Finance’s assets are secured loans. The average ticket size of the loans is Rs 15,000.
As its loans are emergency funding, Muthoot Finance has been able to pass on higher funding costs to its customers and has maintained credit gross non-performing assets at less that 0.5 per cent of gross loans. At the end of September 2008, the company’s loan book was close to Rs 20,000 crore. The NBFC’s net interest margin stayed around the 10 per cent level tillthen; data for subsequent months was unavailable.
Paul was Chairman M G George Muthoot’s second son, while his two brothers, George Muthoot George and Alexander George Muthoot, are also associated with the group as executive director and as a director, respectively. In addition, four of Paul’s cousins are part of the fourth generation of Muthoot directors, who had been inducted into the group.
In February, Group Managing Director George Alexander Muthoot had talked about a 10 per cent equity dilution during the current financial year, which was to be followed by the sale of another 25 per cent stake in 2011-12. KPMG had been given the mandate for the sale of 10 per cent stake to private equity players, Muthoot had told a television channel.
