Punj Lloyd is an Indian engineering and construction company that once built some of the country’s most complex infrastructure, from nuclear power plants to cross-country pipelines, and is now being sold for parts under a court-ordered liquidation. The company was founded as a family-run EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contractor and grew into a global conglomerate, but after a loan default it entered insolvency in 2019 and was finally ordered to be wound up as a going concern in May 2022, with a liquidator appointed to sell whatever could be salvaged. That process ended in March 2026, when Adani Infra bought the rump of the business - the EPC contracts and the defence unit - and the remaining subsidiaries were parcelled off to a separate buyer, leaving the original company an empty shell.
Business segments
Two engines that are being dismantled, not run - a legacy EPC contractor completing its last jobs without bidding for new ones, and a defence manufacturing unit already carved out and sold to a new owner.
1. EPC and construction: the legacy order book being wound down
The company no longer bids for new work; it exists only to finish the sixteen projects it had in hand when liquidation began, after which the EPC business will be transferred to its new owner.
- Paid by how much of the job is done - on fixed-price contracts, revenue is booked as costs are incurred, in proportion to the total estimated cost of the project, so the company recognises income gradually rather than at completion. On cost-plus jobs, it simply recovers its costs plus an agreed margin.
- Losses are called out early - if the total cost to finish a contract is expected to exceed the total revenue, the entire foreseeable loss is provided for immediately, which means a single troubled project can wipe out profits in one go.
- Billing lags behind the work - revenue earned but not yet billed sits on the balance sheet as unbilled revenue, valued at what the company thinks it can actually collect, while cash collected in advance sits as a liability.
- The order book is a countdown, not a pipeline - as of March 2025, the remaining order book was just ₹225 crore, and the company had stopped accepting new orders, aiming to finish supplying materials by September 2025. The EPC business, along with any arbitration awards tied to it, is slated to be demerged into AIIL.
- Four verticals, one fate - the work spans pipelines and tankage (over 300 tanks built globally, plus trenchless drilling under rivers), power (nuclear and thermal plants for NPCIL), buildings and infrastructure (highways and railways), and process plants (a joint venture in Thailand for gas compression facilities), but all are in run-off mode.
2. Defence manufacturing: the unit that was sold separately
A small-scale maker of guns, rockets and artillery systems, licensed in 2007, that was hived off to Adani Defence even before the main EPC sale closed.
- Born from policy change - the business began after India opened defence production to private companies, receiving its first licence to manufacture guns, rockets, missiles and artillery systems in 2007.
- A pivot into hydropower spares - from 2024, the unit also supplied fully machined and painted spare parts for hydro power equipment, exclusively for two customers, Global Hydro Energy and Andritz Hydro.
- One big order, then a cancellation - it won a ₹120 crore contract from the Ministry of Home Affairs to supply and install five full-body X-ray truck scanners at border posts, capable of detecting concealed arms, explosives and narcotics, but the project was terminated by the ministry in FY2022.
- Carved out at closing - under the Adani Infra acquisition, the defence unit was transferred to Adani Defence Systems and Technologies via a separate Business Transfer Agreement, with the closing date on March 10, 2026.
Group structure and partners
The group is a web of subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates, most of them already lost, wound up or sold, with the parent company’s shares cancelled and reissued to the buyer.
- The Singapore arm collapsed years ago - Punj Lloyd Pte. Limited and its entire group of subsidiaries, including Sembawang Engineers and Constructors, were placed under judicial management in Singapore in June 2016 and ordered into liquidation in August 2017, meaning the company lost control of that whole overseas network.
- A branch was taken over by fraud - in December 2023, the company’s Oman branch was seized when a forger obtained a court order using a fake Commercial Registration and, with the help of the Royal Oman Police, evicted Punj Lloyd’s employees from their camp and took control of its records.
- Subsidiaries sold in a batch - on March 31, 2026, the company signed agreements to sell its stakes in six subsidiaries - including Sembawang Infrastructure (India), Indtech Global Systems, Punj Lloyd Industries, Atna Investments, Punj Lloyd Aviation and Spectra Punj Lloyd - to Diversified India Growth Fund, a fund managed by Dickey Asset Management (D36-D41).
- The original shareholders got nothing - the existing share capital was cancelled for nil consideration, and new shares representing 95% of the company were issued to Adani Infra and its nominees, with the rest going to a Mauritius fund as public shareholders.