BR Shetty sells debt-ridden UAE Exchange for just one dollar

Team Udayavani, Dec 20, 2020, 12:36 PM IST

Mangaluru: The fall of the businessman Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty is so pathetic that he sold his flagship company for just one dollar to an Israel-based consortium.

BR Shetty (78) who landed in 1973 in Dubai as a medical representative started his business by establishing the National Medical Centre (NMC) chain of hospitals and money exchange business.

He was ranked 42nd in Forbes 100 richest men in the world in 2014. For the past two years, UAE-based banks were behind him for non-repayment of huge dues and it ended with Finablr Plc selling its business to an Israeli-UAE consortium for $1, capping the collapse of a business that had a market value of 1.5 billion pounds ($2 billion) last December.

Finablr, the scandal-marred platform for payments and foreign exchange solutions, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Global Fintech Investments Holding (GFIH), an affiliate of Prism Group of Israel, to sell to GFIH the entire issued share capital of Finablr Limited.

Prism Group, linked to a former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has formed a consortium with Abu Dhabi’s Royal Strategic Partners (RSP) in connection with the transaction.