Troubled retail chain Subhiksha Trading Services Ltd (STSL) today hit out at investors, who made a 'killing' while the company was healthy, for not helping out in troubled times.
"Financial investors, who have made a killing from the shares, have been by-standers to the travails of the company and employees," STSL Managing Director R Subramanian said in a statement.
Without naming any specific investor, he alleged that there was a misinformation campaign being carried out "to avoid any questions being asked on why a investor, who has taken out so much profit, is not stepping into help the company at its time of crisis and why the said investor diverted equity meant for the company to itself putting the company to grave financial risk".
Although Subramanian did not mention ICICI Ventures directly, it may be recalled that the private equity firm had sold 10 per cent stake in STSL in 2008 to PremjiInvest for a sum of Rs 230 crore.
When contacted, an ICICI Venture spokesperson refused to comment on Subramanian's statement.
The retail chain is undergoing a corporate debt restructuring (CDR) process to make it eligible for debt financing and Subramanian had this month said that STSL needed at least Rs 300 crore to re-start its operations.
