Onelife Capital Advisors: Sebi bans Onelife Capital Advisors, promoters from securities markets for alleged fund diversion

Sebi has restrained Onelife Capital Advisors, its promoters — Pandoo Naig and Prabhakara Naig — from securities markets till further orders for alleged fund diversion and misrepresentation of the company’s financials. The regulator also restrained Naigs from acting as a director or key managerial personnel of any listed company, which intends to raise money from the public or any Sebi-registered intermediary until further orders.

In the interim order cum show cause notice passed on Monday, the markets watchdog directed Onelife Capital Advisors Ltd (OCAL) and Naigs to show cause as to why suitable directions/prohibitions should not be issued against them.

Onelife Capital Advisors and Naigs are promoters of the BSE-listed entity Family Care Hospitals Ltd.

Sebi said the prima facie findings bring to light large-scale misrepresentation in financial statements by OCAL, primarily by inflating revenue and expense figures and presenting a rosy picture to the public about the company’s business when, in reality, these were bogus sales and purchases.

The modus operandi of the company (OCAL) is replete with all sorts of regulatory infringements, such as circuitous transactions amongst related parties with no disclosures or approvals, diversion of funds as loans amongst related parties, corporate governance failures, etc, the regulator added.

According to Sebi, these shenanigans of the Onelife Capital Advisors and its promoters were disregarded by latent or patent approval of ostensible watchdogs inside and outside the company, namely, the compliance officers, audit committee members and statutory auditors. Such a ploy by the unscrupulous promoters and their ilk presents a textbook case of public shareholders being taken for a ride with scant regard for the possible consequences, it added. Further, Sebi also called upon the noticee nos 1 to 9 (OCAL, its promoters, Manoj Ramgopal Malpani, Ram Narayan Gupta, Amol Shivaji Autade, Sonam Satish Kumar Jain, Dhananjay Chandrakant Parikh and Gurunath Mudlapur) to show cause as to why inquiry should not be held against them in terms of the alleged violations of provisions of PFUTP rules and disclosure norms as the case may be.

The order came after Sebi received a complaint in October 2022 from complainants regarding the alleged diversion of funds and misrepresentation in financial statements by Family Care Hospitals Ltd (formerly Scandent Imaging Ltd) and OCAL.

The matter of OCAL was also examined by NSE based on internal alerts generated at their end.

Thereafter, Sebi investigated the matter to ascertain whether there was any violation of the provisions of PFUTP (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices) norms and LODR (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) rules.

The period of investigation was from April 2018 to March 2023.