Four of India’s biggest conglomerates—Adani Group, JSW Group, Reliance Industries, and Tata Group—have emerged as the dominant buyers of stressed assets under India’s decade-old bankruptcy regime.
Together, these four conglomerates acquired companies that accounted for nearly a quarter of the total admitted claims of ₹13 trillion under the corporate insolvency resolution process (Cirp) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) as of December 2025—despite accounting for just 28 of the 1,376 resolutions completed so far.
Adani Group led the pack with 13 acquisitions, including six power companies, according to a Mint analysis of data from the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI). These deals helped rapidly scale up Adani Power Ltd, which emerged as the country’s largest thermal power producer.
The JSW Group followed with seven acquisitions, including Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd, one of the most prominent resolutions under the insolvency process. Reliance Industries acquired five assets spanning Reliance Communications’ cellular towers and textiles, while the Tata Group bought three companies, including Bhushan Steel Ltd.
Outside this group, ArcelorMittal also emerged as a significant acquirer, buying three steel assets—Essar Steel Ltd, Uttam Galva Steels Ltd, and Indian Steel Corporation Ltd—for a cumulative ₹46,522 crore.
In contrast, the Vedanta Group acquired just one asset through the process—Electrosteel Ltd—despite being in contention for several large bankrupt companies, including Essar Steel and Uttam Galva. The group's acquisition of Videocon Ltd has stalled due to legal disputes after the creditors expressed dissatisfaction with the offer.
The value acquired
Despite their limited share of deal count, the top four groups captured a lion’s share of value on offer, which can be gauged by admitted claims against the companies acquired by them.
There is a direct co-relation between how much debt a company manages to take on before going bust and how much its assets are worth, as banks look at a company’s assets before lending.
For instance, creditors’ claims against companies acquired by the Adani Group totalled ₹75,108 crore, as per Mint’s calculation, or about 6% of overall admitted claims. That would rise to nearly 10% if Jaiprakash Associates — whose resolution (value ₹57,185 crore) remains under legal dispute — is included.
By value, however, the JSW Group leads with about 8% of total admitted claims, followed by the Adani Group (6%, rising to nearly 10% including Jaiprakash Associates), Reliance Industries (6%) and the Tata Group (5%), Mint’s calculations show.
These conglomerates have also been most active in acquiring assets with claims of over ₹1,000 crore. Of the 1,376 successful resolutions so far, only 197 involved claims above this threshold, as per IBBI data, but their claims totalled 86% of total admitted claims.
Abizer Diwanji, founder of corporate consulting firm NeoStrat Advisors LLP and one of the earliest resolution professionals under the IBC, said the conglomerates have been more successful in making acquisitions through CIRP because they have businesses across multiple sectors, which allows them to derive more synergistic value and outbid others.
Take Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd (BPSL) for instance. When it was acquired by JSW Steel in 2019 for ₹19,350 crore, the company was a 2.3 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) operation. Today, BPSL has a capacity of 4.5 mtpa and another 0.5 mtpa expansion is in the works.
With this acquisition, JSW Steel surged past peers to become the largest steelmaker in India by capacity. The company now has domestic steel manufacturing capacity of 29.7 mtpa, compared to Tata Steel's domestic capacity of 21.6 mtpa.
In December 2025, JSW Steel struck a deal with Japan’s JFE Steel to sell half its stake in BPSL through a complex transaction for ₹37,250 crore, returning a nifty profit on its original investment.
Adani Power Ltd, the thermal power unit of the Adani Group, acquired six bankrupt power companies with a cumulative capacity of over 5.5 gigawatts (GW) between 2019 and 2025 for just under ₹18,000 crore. That is nearly a third of the current operational capacity of the company, which today has a market capitalization of over ₹3.5 trillion.
Adani Power paid about ₹3.2 crore per megawatt of power generation capacity across these six acquisitions. That compares to a cost of ₹10-12 crore per megawatt for a new thermal power plant as estimated by credit rating agency Icra in February 2025.
The turnaround game
The dominance of large conglomerates in the insolvency process is not just about their ability to acquire assets, but to turn them around post acquisition, which is a far more complex challenge.
“Turnarounds, in our experience, are significantly more complex than acquisitions,” said Monish G. Chatrath, managing partner at risk advisory firm MGC Global Risk Advisory, adding that by the time insolvency cases are admitted against a company, value erosion is usually already entrenched.
“Resolution, therefore, demands sustained capital, sectoral expertise and managerial bandwidth,” he said. It is here that larger organizations enjoy an advantage. They not only have scale and capital, but also better operating capability and the ability to absorb any post-acquisition volatility, Chatrath said.
Diwanji agreed, saying the deep pockets and sectoral synergies of large conglomerates have enabled more effective turnarounds of distressed assets.
“Ultimately, CIRP is not just about recovery for lenders. It is about resolving stuck assets, better utilization of national resources, and saving jobs,” he said, adding that the process has enabled creditors to get the maximum possible value, even as the conglomerates got good assets at bargain prices, and the economy got better utilization from stranded assets.
The Adani Group, Reliance Industries, JSW Group and Tata Steel did not immediately respond to Mint’s queries.
The IBC was enacted in May 2016 and the CIRP became operational from December that year. The regime is nearing 10 years of implementation and has seen the resolution of 1,376 corporate debtors as of 31 December, as per data from the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India.
Creditors received ₹4.1 trillion cumulatively through these resolutions against their claims of ₹13 trillion, translating to an average recovery of 31.6%, the data show. The recovery was 171.5% of the liquidation value of these assets.
