More than knowing how I earned money (luck?), or how I lost money (poor skill?) I thought you should know how I escaped some amazingly risky situations. It is spine chilling for me even 31 years later.

The first story.

I was 26 years of age..wet behind the ears and doing well in my profession (CA). I was regularly attending cases at CIT levels, Tribunal levels, etc. However I was also willing at some of the golden dust of the IT industry to fall on me. I thought it would be a shame to miss out the opportunity. However, I did not do anything for that.

One day I met a super human being. God’s man on earth if there was one. Luckily he was also given a free office space in Marine Lines – like I was given by this good samaritan. We met and hit off well. Really well. He offered to introduce me to a person whom I already knew..but not as well. So far so good.

Mr J was the good smaritan who had given me and Mr. R this office and we both have very high regards for him. Mr J had also opened his Rollodex – which meant I could potentially access at least Rs. 500/600 crores without much effort, but yes I would need a good story.

Now lets come to Mr. R. He took me to Mr. S a promoter of a LISTED company in the IT space. Let’s put things in perspective – if I had joined Hcl, Infosys, Wipro, …in 1988 as CFO, you can guess where my Net worth graph could have been (not cribbing, just showing you the perspective).

We talked a lot, the promoter introduced me to his brother and everything was hunky dory. End of meeting, Mr. promoter thanks me for the amounts of money raised from Mr J’s friends (common to Mr. R, so I actually had no role to play, but that amount was crucial for his forthcoming bigger issue).

Then he stood up to say bye. He put both his hands down…and tumbled a 1kg gold bracelet and 1kg gold Rado watch. THAT GOT MY GOAT.

I loved Mr J and Mr R for their intellectual capacity. Here this man was trying to dazzle me.

I lay low for a week. Mails went unanswered.

I knew the Chairman of the society in which they had their office. I asked him. He said Quarterly payments are ALWAYS paid with interest. I got a friend to talk to their vendors – right from printer to amc guys. Payment always delayed. Cash on hand was in 3 digit crores. Did a 3 year balance sheet analysis (ha CA degree helps!).

Said no to the offer.

Promoter ran away…some jail term happened..some messy court proceedings happened. I was supposed to be the CFO. I would have been in jail.

Learning: Risk detection is an art..develop it slowly.

Knowing 2 right people and 2 right questions to ask is far more important than 2 weeks or 2 months research.