jairamesh Posted December 16, 2012 Posted December 16, 2012 The Indian industrialist controlled 30 per cent of Burrup Fertilisers before ANZ bank appointed receivers last month to recover $360 million in company debts, and a further $500m owed by private Oswal businesses. But this poor bastard managed to escape and live freely here, outskirts of Delhi:cantstop:, repatriation at it's best!: Palatial bolthole for failed fertiliser king http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/palatial-bolthole-for-failed-fertiliser-king/story-e6frg8zx-1225992594511?sv=c474226cf55db5c07df3e8f94db7944b#.UM3m8Pijlxk.twitter IT'S not exactly Majorca, but by Delhi standards the sprawling family estate where Pankaj Oswal is believed to have been holed up since his sudden departure from Australia is an island of comfort in a world of pain. The imposing wrought-iron double gates, presidential drive and uniformed guards are all designed to keep the other India -- of poverty, disease and desperation -- at bay. But with Kevin Rudd and his Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna, this week formalising a long-awaited extradition treaty between the two countries, it remains to be seen whether those same barriers will keep investigators sent by Australia's corporate watchdog from digging deeper into his extensive business dealings. The former Perth-based fertiliser king last month fled Australia, leaving an incomplete mansion, numerous creditors and a tricky list of questions from receivers who now control his Burrup Fertilisers business. His quick departure has sparked memories of another flighty entrepreneur, the late, disgraced Christopher Skase. The Indian industrialist controlled 30 per cent of Burrup Fertilisers before ANZ bank appointed receivers last month to recover $360 million in company debts, and a further $500m owed by private Oswal businesses. Oswal has strongly denied allegations that Burrup Fertilisers funds were siphoned out of the company for private interests. But the bad publicity the 37-year-old says hounded him out of Perth is unlikely to abate. Questions have been raised in India over the $300 million Oswal raised to fund his fertiliser empire. He has insisted he raised the funds from "rich friends". But there's no side-stepping his father Abhey Kumar Oswal's patchy business history of loan defaults and allegations of tax avoidance. In 2005, as Oswal junior was building the foundations for his massive fertiliser operation on Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula near Karratha, Oswal senior was winding up a huge phosphate fertiliser plant in the state of Orissa. Indian news magazine Tehelka noted at the time that "though father and son are functioning independently as projected by both sides, there may be more to it than meets the eye". "The Income Tax department and Reserve Bank of India would perhaps like to know from where the son has got all the seed money for the world-class ammonia plant, especially when his father's group has been a loan defaulter for long." Most Sandgropers could point you in the direction of his incomplete Peppermint Grove mansion which has been valued at up to $70m, but his parents' main Delhi pile -- known in the quaintly colonial parlance of India's nouveau riche as a "farmhouse" -- sits on the outskirts of the capital. Blacked-out Mercedes cars ferry the extended Oswal family to and from their numerous homes where gates and guards keep the unwelcome from their doors and even their streets. Guards who man a barricade at the top of Oswal's street tell The Weekend Australian the family built the road, and therefore can control it, while neighbours say the "globetrotting family" never leaves the house without guards. Several others also confirm the presence of the younger Oswal at the "farmhouse", though the Oswal's estate manager deflects the question, referring it on to Pankaj's personal assistant, Kamaljit Singh, who categorically denies the Oswals are there, insisting he has neither their phone numbers nor email addresses. Kamaljit works for Oswal Projects, an India-based engineering services company which holds a 25-year contract with Burrup worth more than $1m annually. Pankaj Oswal is listed in Burrup Fertilisers' 2008 share prospectus as a director and the largest shareholder of Oswal Projects. Yet when The Weekend Australian visited the office in New Delhi's Connaught Place, we found a dirty grey concrete box of a building, half-masked by charmless hoardings. Inside, workers use mobile phones to light their way up and down the dark, stone stairwell. A passing office worker points the way to the narrow, shuttered office of Oswal Projects. "They're not there," he calls behind him as he feels his way down the stairs. "They finished already."
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