Boards, promoters, disclosures, and minority protection.
Credit ratings from different agencies usually agree. ESG ratings often do not. The reasons are built into how ESG ratings are made, and they change how investors should use them.
Of the three letters in ESG, governance has the clearest link to investor losses. Most large Indian corporate failures began as governance problems before they became financial ones.
Most people start with the share price and the P/E. A better order starts with the business, works through the statements, and looks at the price last.
Accounting problems rarely show up as one dramatic number. They show up as small places where the statements stop agreeing with each other. Here are five to check first.
"Debt-free" is one of the most reassuring phrases in an investor presentation. Sometimes it signals strength. Sometimes it hides idle cash, disguised borrowing, or a business no lender will touch.
India's BRSR reports run to dozens of pages. This opinion piece argues that most of it is narrative, and points to the small part that investors should actually read.
The laws, regulators and codes that decide how Indian listed companies are run, how the rules grew after each scandal, and the main conflict that Indian governance is built to manage.
The rules on board size, independence and meetings, the five main board committees, and how to read a board's real structure from the annual report.
The legal test for independence, the rules on tenure, appointment and resignation, and an eight-point checklist for judging whether a board's independent directors are really independent.
The signals in promoter holding, the mechanics of share pledging, the SEBI disclosure rules, and the red flags that point to forced selling or a change in control.
How related-party deals are defined and approved, SEBI's new turnover-based thresholds, a five-step method for reading the related-party note, and the red flags that point to value leakage.
Qualified opinions, emphasis of matter paragraphs and mid-term auditor exits are among the earliest public warnings of trouble. The opinion types, SEBI's resignation rules, and a red flag checklist.
The legal limits on managerial pay in India, the special votes needed for high promoter pay, how ESOPs work and dilute, and how to judge whether pay is linked to performance.
The rights that minority shareholders have in India, which decisions need a special vote, how e-voting results reveal what investors think, and the role of proxy advisors.
Stewardship codes ask mutual funds, insurers and pension funds to act as responsible owners of the companies they invest in. SEBI's six principles, the other Indian codes, and how to read a fund's voting record.
India is one of the few countries that makes companies spend on CSR by law. Who must spend, how much, on what, what happens to unspent money, and how analysts should read CSR disclosures.
The rules on bribery, whistleblowing, insider trading and material event disclosure that shape corporate integrity in India, and the signals analysts can find in filings.
Accidents, protests, regulatory action and fraud allegations can hit a company far faster than any rating changes. How controversy scores work, four Indian examples, the gap between allegations and findings, and a simple way to build event risk into a valuation.
The three tools investors have for changing company behaviour: talking, voting and selling. The research on which ones work, collaborative engagement through Climate Action 100+, the retreat of the net zero alliances since 2025, and Indian examples.
Ten situations from the annual reports and exchange filings of hypothetical Indian listed companies. For each one, decide whether it is a red flag, worth a closer look, or normal practice.
In January 2009, the chairman of Satyam, then one of India's largest IT services companies, admitted that its accounts had been falsified for years. The case exposed failures by the board, the auditors and investors, and shaped the governance rules in the Companies Act 2013.
IL&FS was a large infrastructure lender and developer with a web of 302 group entities. Its defaults in 2018 froze India's credit markets for non-bank lenders and led the government to take over its board.
Yes Bank grew fast by lending to stressed corporate groups. In March 2020, RBI placed it under a moratorium and replaced its board, and an SBI-led rescue followed. The write-off of its AT1 bonds became one of India's longest-running investor disputes.
DHFL, one of India's largest housing finance companies, collapsed in 2019 amid allegations that large sums had been diverted through shell companies. It became the first financial services company that RBI took to insolvency under the IBC, and Piramal Group acquired it in 2021.
Kingfisher Airlines, controlled by Vijay Mallya's UB Group, ran up heavy losses and large loans from a group of banks before it stopped flying in 2012. Mallya left India in 2016 and in 2019 became the first person declared a fugitive economic offender under a new law.
Subhash Chandra's Essel Group borrowed heavily against its shares in Zee Entertainment and other listed companies to fund other ventures. When the shares crashed in January 2019, lenders' margin calls forced the family to sell, and its stake in Zee fell from about 43% to about 4%.
Coffee Day Enterprises, the parent of Café Coffee Day, was found to have moved ₹3,535 crore from its subsidiaries to a company owned by the promoter family. The money trail came to light after the death of founder V.G. Siddhartha in July 2019, and SEBI penalised the company in 2023.
