Apollo Wades In Where Amazon Fears to Tread

After Amazon.com Inc., it’s the turn of Apollo Global Management Inc. to wade into the jungle that’s corporate governance in India. It has sued a Mumbai-based warehousing firm in which it owns a large stake. The cause of the dispute vanished on Monday when the company dropped a controversial plan to sell its business. But the US shareholder, whose rejection of the deal was given short shrift by the board, must still worry about its rights. After all, when the world’s largest retailer couldn’t enforce contracts in the country, why should a buyout firm fare any better?

Amazon and Apollo had made separate investments in private ventures of Kishore Biyani, a pioneer of modern-format stores in a country still dominated by neighborhood mom-and-pop shops. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant had bought stock worth $192 million in his gift-voucher unit so that the founder could invest the money in his retail business. The New York-based asset manager had given a 16 billion rupee ($200 million) loan to some of Biyani’s holding companies.