DHFL crisis: How the housing finance giant's fortunes took a downward turn

A strong brand in tier-II and lower cities, DHFL was an AAA-rated company till February 3, when it was downgraded to AA+ by CARE Ratings. A series of downgrades has eroded its stock by half since then

With CRISIL, Icra, and CARE downgrading the papers of Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) to ‘D’, or default grade, India’s third-largest mortgage finance company is finding itself in an unenviable spot that it may not have imagined even a year ago.

While CRISIL and Icra downgraded the short-term ratings, CARE also followed suit to downgrade DHFL's long-term ratings to D. Even CARE Ratings downgraded the long-term credit of DHFL to D.

Exactly a year back, in fact, the then Lord Mayor of London Charles Bowman was “delighted” to welcome Kapil Wadhawan, chairman of Wadhawan Global Capital, to Mansion House “to discuss