In January 2009, around the time that Satyam Computer Services was collapsing in a heap, Subhiksha too was falling to pieces. In all the noise generated by Satyam's crash, India's biggest discount retailer's downfall was muffled , heard merely as a whisper.
But for Mukand, one of Subhiksha's 15,000 employees and a purchase manager for Karnataka, the noise was deafening. "We had no money, no work, nothing ," he says, recalling the fear and despondency among the staff of Subhiksha, which was regarded as a company that had found the magic formula to make organised retailing a success in India. Rumours that Subhiksha was in a precarious position started in September 2008 itself. That month, Mukand and his colleagues didn't get their salaries. A month later, the shops, there were 2,000 of them across India--started shutting, one by one. In early 2009, Mukand was given a salary cheque for 14,000. A few days later, he learnt that it was dishonoured. There was no money in the HSBC and Standard Chartered accounts of Subhiksha, a company which had just the previous year claimed sales of Rs 2,300 crore. When Subhiksha toppled over and sought restructuring of its loans, the world was in the middle of its biggest economic downturn since the 1930s. The company claimed that its entire inventory was looted by miscreants and spiteful employees, and projected itself as a victim of circumstances. In those tough times, the story was not difficult to believe but what surprised many was the sudden outbreak of animosity between ICICI Venture, India's largest domestic private equity firm, and Premji Invest. Premji purchased 10% in Subhiksha from ICICI Venture in March 2008 for Rs 230 crore in hopes of selling the shares for a handsome profit when the promised listing happened. He was left holding dud stock. To Premji and his team, handpicked from places like Hindustan Unilever and Bank of America, it was a humiliation. In January 2009, Renuka Ramnath, the chief executive of ICICI Venture, resigned.