New Delhi, July 27 -- In the spring of 2009, Habil Khorakiwala had almost nothing left to bargain with. Wockhardt Ltd, the pharmaceutical company he had built out of a small Mumbai drug unit-an offshoot of the family's Akbarallys retail business, which was never supposed to be about chemistry-had reported its first loss a year earlier, a Rs.581 crore hole blown open by derivative bets gone wrong. Debt stood near Rs.3,800 crore. The stock, which had traded at Rs.419 on the first day of 2008, touched Rs.68 in March 2009. Bankers took charge of the finances through a corporate debt restructuring exercise. Khorakiwala stepped back as managing director; his sons Murtaza and Huzaifa were formally appointed to run the company that March.

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