Ketan Parekh Scam of 2001: Uncovering The Whole Truth

The Ketan Parekh scam that shocked India’s financial markets in 2001 was the biggest since the Harshad Mehta scam almost a decade prior. Orchestrated by stockbroker Ketan Parekh, it involved manipulating share prices, circular trading, bribery and large-scale fraud that cost investors over $5 billion.

In this 5000-word exposé, we’ll analyze how Parekh managed to fool regulators and pull off one of India’s biggest ever financial crimes. You’ll discover:

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If you stay with me till the end of this deep dive into the sensational Ketan Parekh scam, you’ll understand exactly how he managed to manipulate the system and escape scrutiny for so long. Let’s get started!

Who is Ketan Parekh?

To understand the mechanisms of the scam executed by Ketan Parekh, we first need to understand his background.

Ketan Parekh was a qualified chartered accountant (CA) who inherited a family brokerage business named NH Securities from his father. After getting his CA certification he worked at the reputed institutional brokerage firm Narbheram Harakchand Securities for several years in the late 1980s.

It was here that Parekh started getting interested in understanding the stock market better. He was particularly fascinated by the methods employed by stockbroker Harshad Mehta, who was infamous for orchestrating the 1992 securities scam.

Parekh realised that if he could understand Mehta’s approach of exploiting loopholes in the system, he could make a lot of money too. So he joined Mehta’s firm GrowMore Investments in the 1990s to get a first-hand view of his notorious tactics.

At GrowMore, Parekh worked closely with Mehta to observe his working style and master the tricks of circular trading, bank fraud and manipulating share prices that earned Mehta the nickname “Big Bull”.

After Mehta was exposed and arrested in 1992, Parekh laid low for a few years before deciding to execute his own scam by building on his mentor’s methods. By the late 1990s, Ketan Parekh had become an expert in spotting loopholes that could be exploited.

The Information, Communication & Entertainment (ICE) Boom

As an experienced stockbroker, Parekh understood that the technology/internet boom of the late 1990s provided the perfect cover for his manipulations.

Investors were eagerly investing in technology and internet stocks abroad, with names like Amazon, Google and eBay becoming hot favourites. The same enthusiasm was building in India around the Information, Communication & Entertainment or ICE sector.

Media outlets constantly focused on the rise of ICE stocks as India pushed for modernisation and technology upgrades. Stocks like Zee Telefilms from the entertainment industry and Silverline Technologies from the IT sector were frequently discussed as strong bets for the future.

Parekh smartly decided to ride this wave by pretending to “discover” the potential of unknown or smaller ICE companies. He would then invest heavily to pump up prices and attract other institutional investors, before dumping his own shares secretly.

The Circular Trading Loophole

The first step for Parekh was to identify smaller technology or media stocks that he could pump up through circular trading. This is a form of market manipulation that involves a broker and his associates trading shares amongst themselves to artificially inflate trading volumes and share prices.

He partnered with a set of smaller stockbrokers who he could use for this scheme. They would buy and sell shares of companies identified by Parekh at pre-decided prices, essentially selling to each other in circles to simulate market interest. For example:

• Broker A would place a buy order for 10,000 shares of Company X at Rs. 60
• Simultaneously, Broker B who is connected to A would put an order to sell 10,000 shares of Company X at Rs. 60
• The two pre-arranged orders would get executed, although no actual change in ownership had occurred
• This process would get repeated numerous times, hiking up reported trade volumes for Company X
• To the ordinary observer following market activity, it would appear that Company X shares were seeing a lot of buying interest, so they would also want to buy

As buying interest shot up, share prices rose rapidly too. Parekh and his broker friends would then sell their holdings to institutional investors at massively inflated valuations. They would share profits from this pump-and-dump scheme, while also charging commissions for executing trades.

By concentrating circular trading activities on the Calcutta Stock Exchange which had poor surveillance systems, Parekh ensured scrutiny was minimal. The exchange also permitted trading on ‘badla’ or leverage which amplified volumes further.

Over a period of two years, he expertly exploited the circular trading loophole to spread hype around dozens of little-known stocks including Visualsoft Technologies, Sonata Software and Pentamedia Graphics.

For instance, shares of Visualsoft rocketed from Rs. 625 to Rs. 8,448 each, while Sonata went from Rs. 90 to Rs. 2,936. Such astronomical returns in short periods seemed too good to be true – and indeed they were!

The Pump-And-Dump Scam Blueprint

Circular trading was only part of Parekh’s clever blueprint though. He adopted a multi-pronged “pump-and-dump” method where share prices were first pumped up through false hype, and then shares were quietly dumped on gullible institutional investors lured by the sudden growth.

The other aspects of his pump-and-dump blueprint were:

Media Hype: Parekh used his connections to have media outlets like CNBC TV18, ET Now and popular newspapers frequently highlight promising prospects of his hand-picked stocks. Retail investors who bought into the hype ended up inflating prices further.

Analyst Recommendations: He paid off research analysts to give strong “Buy” recommendations on those very stocks. These tips published in trading magazines added to investor frenzy around the shares.

Insider Fund Raising: An illegal but clever ploy Parekh used was to approach company promoters for investing their own capital into pumping up stock prices. He promised them huge returns once prices peaked. Some gave him cash, while others bought shares and pledged them to banks so he could get loans.

The funds through these schemes were then routed back to Manipur Stock Exchange brokers to conduct circular trading. Volumes and prices skyrocketed within months.

For example, shares of media firm Zee Telefilms went from Rs. 127 to Rs. 24,000 within a year – a shocking 18,898% increase! Once peak prices were reached, Parekh offloaded his stake to foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and his promoter partners – pocketing crores in personal profits and fees.

In essence, Ketan Parekh had developed an intricate web of manipulation by exploiting systemic loopholes regarding Indian capital market surveillance, media ethics and banking due diligence.

Let’s look at the repercussions.

Investor Reviews & Complaints

While Ketan Parekh and his shady promoter associates made fortunes from the pump-and-dump schemes… over 70,000 investors lost big money when his empire eventually came crashing down!

Many had invested their life savings or taken loans to purchase Ketan Parekh’s “hot stock tips”, only to see share values evaporate later. Some reviews and complaints:

Ramesh, retired government official:

“I invested nearly Rs. 8 lakh by liquidating my fixed deposits on Parekh’s CavLink Technologies stock. I was planning to gift some wealth to my grandchildren but the stock tanked from Rs. 180 to Rs. 3 per share. My retirement corpus is wiped out.”

Reena, entrepreneur:

“Being an entrepreneur myself, I trusted Ketan Parekh’s tips on technology stocks. My husband and I borrowed Rs. 12 lakh on our house to invest in DSQ Software and Visualsoft. Today we are paying off pointless EMIs as both companies shut down and shares became worthless pieces of paper.”

Gautam, investor:

“The analysts on TV and in magazines kept highlighting Parekh’s ability to discover winners. When he said stocks like Sonata Software are a steal at current prices, I liquidated by mutual funds to invest over Rs. 20 lakh into it. Imagine my horror when I realized it was all rigged…I lost everything.”

The term “stock market casino” was being thrown around a lot to indicate promoter-driven manipulation that was common then. For Parekh’s victims, investing their hard-earned savings or borrowing large sums had proven catastrophic.

Let’s take a closer look at why banks lending Parekh crores also faced major difficulties…

The Bank Frauds

Aside from using a shady network of brokers and market operators to funnel illegal cash into stocks, Ketan Parekh’s involvement with Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank (MMCB) also led to uproar.

As an independent director on MMCB’s board, he used his influence to get the bank into murky dealings estimated at over Rs. 800 crore!

According to RBI guidelines then, MMCB could not lend more than Rs. 15 crore to a single stockbroker. However, bank officials later admitted that their exposure to Ketan Parekh exceeded Rs. 800 crore – over 50 times the permissible limit!

The methods Parekh used to obtain such large sums included bribing senior MMCB officials to approve massive loans that clearly violated norms. In some cases, he got loans sanctioned with no collateral pledged.

In others, he got the Bank to issue “Pay Orders” against his company without having actual funds in MMCB accounts to back them. A Pay Order is a banking instrument guaranteeing another bank that funds will be made available by the issuer.

Parekh managed to get a Pay Order issued with no money in his account, pledging it to get over Rs. 130 crore in funding from Bank of India – which he invested into shares. This constitutes bank fraud – plain and simple.

Another cooperative bank, the Ahmedabad-based Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank, also gave Parekh loans exceeding approved limits. In total, he had managed to secure over Rs. 1,000 crore from cooperative banks – funds which were pumped into his network of operator-controlled companies to jack up stock prices.

Eventually when his scam collapsed, MMCB was worst hit with defaults on loans and interest payments of over Rs. 800 crore that Ketan Parekh had borrowed fraudulently. The bank struggled to stay afloat before finally going bankrupt.

Its license was cancelled and a long process of liquidation began – causing heavy losses for its thousands of depositors too. Staff and ex-directors associated with MMCB also faced prosecution for negligence, breach of trust and sanctions violations under RBI’s watch.

The Unraveling Begins…

By early 2001, Ketan “Kingfisher” Parekh was at the peak of his power in Dalal Street. With help from corrupt bank officials, shady corporate promoters and unethical media brokers, he had managed to gain almost god-like status among retail investors.

Parekh deliberately built an aura of invincibility, portraying himself as an astute stock picker who knew the future direction that technology stocks would take. Investors firmly believed he had the “midas touch” with every stock he collected turning to gold, thanks to his machinations.

His reputation grew to a point where retail investors would flock to buy shares of any company they heard Parekh had bought a stake – without doing any fundamental research! Such was the carefully crafted aura around his stock picking genius.

However, the walls came crashing down quicker than Parekh expected starting February 2001…

It all started when ICICI Bank refused to clear Pay Orders pledged by Parekh, putting his banking relationships at risk. Around the same time, someparser operators dumped their dematerialized shares of his 10 favorite picks like Global Trust Bank, MMCB and Zee Telefilms.

Parekh decided to quickly unwind his positions by selling off holdings worth hundreds of crores at the Calcutta stock exchange in off-market hours between 5 to 10 pm. But since so many shares were being offloaded in panic through his operator friends, prices started crashing down.

The resultant chaos in the markets created panic even among investors who sensed something was not quite right with the pillar they had trusted for so long. When share prices kept sliding day-after-day, they started offloading their holdings too.

Soon enough, some banks and brokerage houses stopped taking Parekh’s orders as payment defaults began. He owed tens of thousands of crores to traders and financial institutions in the system. The ripple effects spread across India’s bourses.

Mid-way through March 2001, reporters from The Times of India investigated Parekh’s connections and started breaking stories about his involvement in a financial scam built on market manipulation. The facts unravelled rapidly in the days that followed triggering a crisis.

Before anyone fully realized, the markets had crashed, hundreds of small investors had lost their life savings and a ïnancial spiderweb of lies had been built by Ketan “Kingfisher” Parekh – only to be ripped apart in a few chaotic weeks.

Let’s analyze in a bit more detail, the impacts and the aftermath…

The Impacts & Aftermath of Ketan Parekh Scam

Ketan Parekh’s intricate web of fraud involving illegal funding channels, insider information, circular trading, leveraged purchases and bank bribery started coming apart in March 2001. Some key impacts seen were:

1) Market Crash: Stock markets reacted panicky to reports about the scale of Parekh’s dealings as the manipulations became clear. Key indices Nifty and Sensex crashed sharply:

• BSE Sensex fell a whopping 176 points (5%) on March 1, 2001
• The very next day Sensex plunged another 146 points (4%) due to panic selling

Such major single-day falls were only seen only during the Harshad Mehta scam’s fallout earlier. Over Rs. 100,000 crore in investor wealth was reportedly destroyed in the Ketan Parekh-triggered crash.

2) Wider Economic Impacts: Banks and institutions that had lent large sums to Ketan Parekh without due diligends faced heavy losses as loans turned bad. Lending had been supported using civilian savings and deposits, so a wider economic crunch got triggered.

3) Banking Sector Investigations: In addition to MMCB, Global Trust Bank faced scrutiny about granting unsecured advances adding up to Rs. 85 crore to Ketan Parekh. GTB’s license was suspended and it was later merged with Oriental Bank of Commerce in an RBI-directed rescue package.

4) SEBI Investigations & Arrests: SEBI started investigating K-10 stocks Parekh had manipulated. Several brokers and fund managers associated with him soon got barred from trading activities in 2001 itself – like Amit Ved Parikh, his wife Pratima Amit Parikh and Jatin Mehta who controlled Alliance Intermediateries and Systems.

Over two dozen entities were restrained eventually, and Ketan Parekh + his wife were arrested on charges of defrauding the Bank of India using a bogus pay order.

5) Cooperative Bank Shake-up: Given the huge failures seen at MMCB, RBI and Finance Ministry reviewed regulations around cooperative banks. Stricter rules were proposed for granting credit to brokers against shares. Periodic compliance reviews were mandated to prevent excessive exposures like in Parekh’s case in future.

The above outcomes and actions only signified the tip of the iceberg…

Ketan Parekh Scam Ongoing Investigations

It took investigators years to piece together the convoluted trail of fraud left by Ketan Parekh through hundreds of companies, brokers and market operators. After his March 2001 arrest by CBI, these were some of the key developments over following years:

SEBI Aftermath: Markets regulator SEBI analyzed bank statements, financial records and stock trading patterns to quantify the financial misdeeds orchestrated by Parekh and his wide network. Some outcomes were:

• July 2011: SEBI barred Parekh from accessing capital markets for 15 years until 2017
• March 2014: 19 front companies of Ketan Parekh banned from stock markets by SEBI
• July 2017: SEBI extended trading ban on Parekh-connected entities by five more years till 2022

CBI Aftermath: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax Department also pursued criminal probes against Parekh, his associates and the bankers who colluded:

• 2008: Parekh along with former MMCB chairman Pradyumansinh Jadeja arrested by CBI for 1992 Canbank Financial Services scam estimated at Rs. 60 crore
• 2014: Special CBI court convicted Parekh and 12 others for duping Canara Bank
• 2017: Indian government contacts authorities in Dubai and Singapore seeking details on assets and companies connected to Ketan Parekh
• 2019: Mumbai court rejects ED plea to declare Ketan Parekh a fugitive economic offender

Banking Aftermath: RBI and cooperative bank authorities undertook proceedings seeking to recover losses and penalize banks that had failed to implement adequate internal checks:

• 2001: RBI appoints administrator to take over management of Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank after Rs. 800 crore exposure to Ketan Parekh comes to light
• 2012: MMCB license cancelled due to inability to revive viability; liquidation process began causing losses for depositors
• 2003: Global Trust Bank loses license; forced to merge with Oriental Bank of Commerce in a bailout

The Verdict

Despite multiple investigative agencies keeping his case open for nearly two decades given the magnitude and complexity…Ketan Parekh has thus far managed to stay mostly outside of prison.

He was arrested in 2001 and kept in custody for a few months amid the scam aftermath. He however got bail in the BoI pay order case.