About

Conducting its financial services businesses through various subsidiaries, L&T Finance Holdings is an Indian holding company offering a focused range of financial products and services across rural, housing and wholesale finance sectors, as well as mutual fund products and wealth management services. Heading the large legal team of 171 lawyers and 37 non-lawyers that contains some of India’s best legal talent is group general counsel, Raju Dodti. Two verticals support Dodti’s overall heading of the legal function including Rajesh Talwatkar in the litigation team, who is known to ‘drive resolutions and recovery through litigation for the lending entities’ according to Dodti, whilst in the transaction team, divisional heads of legal Kavita Shetty, Sheetal Prabhu and Aparna Rawat have all been recognised by Dodti as outstanding figures in the legal function. Collectively the team frequently advises on complex and challenging transactions. ‘Our structuring and turnaround time is used as a benchmark by the industry. We are also at the forefront of industry advocacy to develop marketable industry perspective acceptable to all stakeholders and to this end have been acknowledged and recognised for our knowledge and perspective on renewable energy projects across the entire financial services industry’, says Dodti. Apart from general transactions, which include financing the largest renewable power projects and having the single largest renewable energy financing portfolio, the internal legal team has also helped implement internal reorganisation and corporate consolidation for organisational efficiency. Notable transactions the team has worked on include the single largest financing of a foreign investor-backed renewable project development in India with SkyPower, a structured finance deal between Kotak, L&T Realty and Nirmal Group for a residential project in suburban Mumbai and a structured asset monetisation with other investors and lenders of a Tikona Airtel entity.