The industrialists were exuberant about India’s future, showing an enthusiasm that soon infected supposedly risk-averse bankers too. Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher was one obvious example. When things began to go wrong, the banks restructured the tycoon’s loans and gave him more time to fix his finances, while also swapping debt for equity at generous rates.22 When it became clear that Mallya was not going to be able to repay, they were stuck. They had no legal means to take control of Kingfisher, or even to force Mallya to repay what he could. The power imbalance between lender and debtor was too
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