The lessons in Tulsi Tanti’s spectacular rise and fall

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Editor's note: There was a brief period when nothing could go wrong for Tulsi Tanti, the founder and chairman of Pune-based wind energy company Suzlon, who passed away last week.  When Suzlon shot into the limelight in 2005 with its initial public offering, investors couldn’t get enough of the company. Its Rs 10 paid-up shares were priced at a premium of Rs 500 and the retail offer was oversubscribed six times; the non-institutional portion was oversubscribed over 40 times. The shares listed at Rs 640 and were soon trading at over Rs 800 apiece. Suzlon’s market capitalization crossed Rs 30,000 crore and Tanti was worth a whopping $6 billion.  For a man who hailed from a failed textile business background and joked about how he had named his company Suzlon to make it sound like a European firm, he had come a long way. Tanti was all of 48 years old then. In double quick time, Tanti had become the poster boy of a rising India. The Indian economy was growing at over 9% in those days and foreign investors were flocking …