2 islands, 71-room palace, $ 4 billion net: how everything collapsed for Aircels Siva

Last updated:May 06, 2025, 14:48 is

In 1999 Chinnakannan Sivasankaran also knows as “Siva” Aircel, a company for mobile phone services that became a player in the telecommunications industry.

As the proud owner of Two Private Islands, a 71-room men's house in Chennai and real estate on continents, Chinnakannan Sivasankaran-in business circles as “Siva”, he now calls himself a broken man who leads a modest life. But he insists: he is not poor.

The story of Sivasankaran reads like the script of a gripping biopics. He was born in a modest household in Tamilian Nadu and had an extraordinary journey through the Indian corporate landscape, which set up and lost a billion dollar empire. Speak recently The Ranveer showThe former telecommunications tycoon reflected on its spectacular rise and the modest setbacks. “I'm not poor, I'm just broke for the time being,” he said with a calm that contradicted the turbulence that he sounded.

Siva's entrepreneurial journey began in the 1980s with a modest foray in the computer hardware. His company Sterling Computers Limited (STC) became one of the leading names in the IT sector of Indian IT in the 1990s. But it was in telecommunications where he really made a name for himself.

In 1999 he founded Aircel, a company for mobile phone services that became a player in the telecommunications industry. Aircel quickly scaled, put on Lakhs from subscribers and developed into an impressive brand. In 2006, SIVA sold a 74% participation in Aircel to Maxis Communications to Malaysia in a deal that would later follow him.

The transaction was involved in the notorious 2G spectrum scandal, which shook the telecommunications sector and the political corridors alike. While others were confronted with law enforcement, Siva was also sunk into legal difficulties and debts. In 2018, Aircel said bankruptcy and Siva claimed that he personally suffered a loss of RS 7,000 Crore.

“I had everything – wealth, real estate, recognition – and then I watched how everything disappeared,” he said. Its net assets, once with over 4 billion US dollars, evaporated with the fall of Aircel and the domino effect, which it triggered on its other activities.

But the man who once ate with billionaires and entertained dignitaries in his palace houses says that his story is far from over. He was inspired by an unlikely source and told a book by Donald Trump on the same day when he explained for bankruptcy. It gave him the motivation to plan his comeback.

“I decided what I had to do next. My story is not over yet,” he explained and radiated a calm determination.

His previous life was the stuff of the modern kings. He had real estate in London, the USA and Canada and did not have one, but two islands on the Seychelles. His extensive property of Chennai worth 524 billion rupees rarely had 71 rooms and a level of opulence, even among the richest in the country. The estate is now gone – torn down according to its financial crisis. Today Siva keeps a two hectare plot of land in the same country, but says that he has no immediate plans for reconstruction. “First I will solve all of my problems. Then maybe I'll think about it,” he said.

He continues to fight a legal dispute in front of the Supreme Court and states that a favorable judgment could restore a lot of what he has lost. It is this mixture of faith and resilience that Siva now defines more than the wealth that he once ordered.

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