At shut Onjus office, 4-hour wait leaves them thirsty and angry

Remember Onjus? One of the first brands of packaged orange juice to make a splash in the Indian market. The company that made Onjus is now m...

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Remember Onjus? One of the first brands of packaged orange juice to make a splash in the Indian market. The company that made Onjus is now making people like N S Ramanathan (50) sweat.

He climbed four flights of a rickety staircase in Sitaram Sadan, Marine Lines, Mumbai, in the sweltering heat and sat outside the locked Enkay Texofood office — for four hours. The Indian Express found him waiting patiently with old documents in hand, hoping that some Texafood employee would show up.

INVESTOR STORY

For 60-year-old N. Balasubramanian a retired Central Railways engineer, putting his retirement money in various fixed deposit schemes was the only way to secure a hassle-free retirement life. A father of three daughters, Balasubramanian was banking on the returns from the Rs 10,000 that he had invested in Enkay Texofood. ‘‘The interest offered by them was not too great at 14 per cent. Still I invested thinking about the huge expenses for my daughters’ marriage,’’ he says. After dozens of letters to the company and an equal number of calls that went unanswered, Balasubramanian is a broken man now. ‘‘I can’t run around now. Besides, my wife is also not well. Can you please ask them to give me back my money,’’ he appeals. Are the DCA and Sebi listening?

His niece Ramya invested Rs 10,000 in fixed deposit in 1991. All of last year Ramanathan, who says he does a 9-to-5 job, tried to call the company officials through their dead telephone numbers. He finally got through to a ‘‘Mr Yadav’’.

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‘‘He asked me to come here… I have come all the way from Ghatkopar, I missed office today,’’ says Ramanathan.

Thousands of investors like him have come and gone without knowing what happened to the money they had invested in the company’s fixed deposits and shares. Some even scribbled angry notes on the door: ‘‘Dont cheat us, pay our money back’’.

A piece of white paper glued to the door says: Don’t disturb the neighbours. ‘‘Goyal is sitting inside the office, just say you want to deliver mail and he might open the door,’’ confides a neighbour, who had to face angry investors who constantly knocked on his door.

Another points out that they also have an office on the second floor of the same building which no one knows, ‘‘not even the investors who came here regularly seeking their money’’. But the locked doors refuse to reveal any person or secrets.

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The man behind all the woe is Tulsidas Goyal. When The Indian Express reached Goyal’s residence near Chowpatty, we were told he was out of town. His mobile number (98200 30588) was hooked onto an answering machine.

• Total money raised from the investors: Rs 28.84 cr
• Total money owed to banks and FIs: Rs 200 cr
• Suspended from trading: June 2001
• Where the promoters are: Tulsidas Goyal is allegedly travelling out of Mumbai

His company was doing well till 1998 and it collapsed in just two years. ‘‘There was a liquidity problem due to mismanagement,’’ says a source in a financial institution. The Enkay group’s textile division had a severe cash crunch in the early 90s because of recession. As a result of the cash drain, even the food processing unit had inadequate working capital.

By the end of 1999, sales of its lone profitable product Onjus, with a market share close to 79 per cent in 1997, was stopped by the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) for selling kinnow juice as ‘‘natural orange juice from the finest oranges from America’’. Sales slumped and so did Enkay’s fortunes. ‘‘The company can’t get away just by blaming MRTPC. It was a case of mismanagement and inexperience of promoters,’’ says a shareholder, refusing to be named.

In the meantime, the demerger of the textiles division of the Enkay Texofood Industries hit a roadblock with the financial institutions. The entire restructuring plans of the company collapsed. The balance sheets show that the company’s net worth plunged from Rs 130.65 crore in March 1998 to Rs 2.73 crore in March 2000.

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By March 2002, the company’s net worth was in the negative at Rs 147.56 crore. Similarly, the company’s profits also went down as net profits fell from Rs 13.46 crore in March 1998 to a loss of Rs 15.13 crore in March 1999.

With rising losses, the company tried to take shelter under the Board of Industrial and FInancial Reconstruction (BIFR). Their plea was rejected. The FIs, have, meanwhile, moved the Debt Recovery Tribunal to recover their funds.

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