London: Pramod Mittal, the flamboyant brother of the world’s richest steel magnate and the CEO of ArcelorMittal Laxmi Mittal, has been declared bankrupt owing to $160 million. Pramod (64) was made bankrupt by the Insolvency and Companies List on June 23, after a bankruptcy petition was filed against him by United Kingdom’s Moorgate Industries Ltd.
It is telling that Lakshmi Mittal declined to bail him out again. Last year, Lakshmi paid off the majority of a $290 million debt of Pramod’s business Global Steel Holdings, owed to the State Trading Corporation in India. This was even after the brothers fell out in 1995. Lakshmi, with a fortune of $7.4 billion, is ranked ninth in the Forbes list of richest Indians.
No expense was sparred when Pramod married his daughter Shrishti at the hilltop National Museum of Catalan Art in 2012. The wedding reportedly cost $82 million dollars (Rs. 505 crore approximately), with Michelin-star chef Sergi Arola preparing a stunning banquet and the guests were treated with a spectacular sound and water show to the tune of Chariots of Fire.
But all that was a far cry from the more prosaic setting of the London courtroom, that declared him bankrupt.
Mittal’s debt woes began 14 years ago when he agreed to become a guarantor for debts of a Bosnian coke producer named Global Ispat Koksna Industrija Lukavac (GIKIL). The company failed to repay $166 million.