Jindal's Mega Play

On September 29, Sajjan Jindal celebrated Dussehra with his family and colleagues at JSW Centre, the headquarters of JSW Group in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex. Like in the past, he donned traditional headgear and moved his feet to the tunes of garba. His wife Sangita, son Parth and daughter in law Anushree, joined the celebrations. While the rest of Mumbai continued the celebrations over the next few days, Jindal took a flight to London. He had no time to dally, what with the group on the verge of massive expansion, even venturing outside its comfort zone of steel, power and cement where it has been a dominant player for decades.

JSW is now foraying into paint manufacturing, financial services and electric vehicles. Alongside, the largest steelmaker in the country JSW Steel has a capacity of 18 million tonnes (MT) per annum, surpassing state owned SAIL's 17.5 MT and Tata Steel's 12.7 MT intends to grow even larger, building new capacity as well as acquiring sick assets and turning them around. Expansion of cement and port businesses is on the cards as well. "There have been no new investments in these sectors for the last few years, so we anticipate supply constraints once the growth momentum picks up," Jindal tells Business Today. "This is an opportune time to invest to take advantage of the upcoming growth cycle."

What lies ahead for Jindal? The Rs66,000 crore JSW Group already has an aggregate debt of Rs60,000 crore, and his ambitious plans will only raise the figure. The new steel capacity he wants to add will require investment of more than Rs26,800 crore over the next three years, including Rs15,000 crore to double the capacity of the plant in Dolvi, Maharashtra, from five million to 10 MT. The company's ports