This Indian man spent Rs 550 crore on daughter’s wedding, was a billionaire, now left with no money, his name is…

His financial troubles reached a breaking point when London’s Insolvency and Companies Court declared him bankrupt. Reports revealed that he owed £2.5 billion (over Rs. 24,000 crore at the time).

Time is mighty. It can turn a king into a beggar and a beggar into a king overnight. Pramod Mittal, who was once among the richest men in the UK, is now struggling to meet ends. In fact, he is so penniless that he lives on his wife for his daily expenses. He was once buried under debt of Rs. 24,000 crore and never quite bounced back from that. Way back in 2013, Pramod Mittal was the talk of the town with his extravagance of Rs. 550 crore spent on daughter Srishti Mittal‘s wedding to Dutch-Indian investment banker Gulraj Behl in Barcelona, Spain.

His high-life, however, soon gave way to financial woes and legal troubles. He finally became bankrupt and even ended up in jail. Pramod Mittal, brother of Lakshmi Mittal, is now at the lowest ebb of his life. His whereabouts and activities are now unknown, with no recent press reports about him.

A USD 166 million loan guarantee turned into a nightmare

Pramod Mittal‘s financial downfall was the result of some of the decisions he had taken in the past. In 2013, he had guaranteed a USD 166 million loan to GIKIL, a Bosnian metallurgical company, in which he was a co-owner and chairman of the supervisory board.

But when GIKIL defaulted on the loan, the onus fell on Mittal, and he was in serious financial trouble. What had been a setback in 2013 had become a full-blown financial downfall by 2020.

Drowning in Debt: Over Rs. 24,000 crore outstanding

Pramod Mittal‘s financial troubles peaked when London‘s Insolvency and Companies Court declared him bankrupt. He was reported to owe £2.5 billion (over Rs. 24,000 crore at the time). Under oath, he admitted that he had property only in Delhi and no personal income, living only on his wife Sangeeta and children.

Mittal had borrowed humongous sums from his family to pay creditors—£1.1 million from his wife, £2.4 million from his son Divyesh, and £1.1 million from his brother-in-law Amit Lohia. His troubles deepened in 2019 when he was arrested in Bosnia along with two officials of GIKIL on charges of fraud. This precipitous fall from grace was in contrast to his former ultra-luxurious lifestyle—most notably, his daughter‘s ultra-ostentatious Rs. 550 crore wedding in 2013.

His elder brother, Lakshmi Mittal, had also been in the news for his daughter Vanisha Mittal‘s 2004 six-day-long wedding that cost around Rs. 240 crore, one of the costliest weddings in the world at the time.