IL&FS crisis: India's busted Macquarie clone must go under the knife

The institution that made a business of exploiting India's desperation for funds, is now seeking to protect its assets from unpaid creditors trying to push it into bankruptcy

When even a 24-year-old Indian entrepreneur has no difficulty raising $1 billion in a day from global investors, it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always like this.

Only two decades ago, a storied Mumbai financier could get away with raising $25 million of debt for a client, giving it just about half of that money five years later, and making the company service the full amount thereafter.

But what goes around, comes around. The institution that made a business of exploiting India’s desperation for funds, particularly for long-gestation infrastructure projects, is now seeking to protect its assets from unpaid creditors trying