Dr. Mallya loosens his purse strings…
Dr. Vijay Mallya… who doesn’t know this guy? And if you don’t, you probably have been living under a rock..he’s the Chairman of United Breweries,the world’s 2nd largest spirit company. Apart from that, I’ll easily call him the most flamboyant person in India Inc. His yachts, his cars, his attitude, his tightly clad air-hostesses following him everywhere, the calenders, ah…. life must be good if you’re in the shoes of Vijay Mallya.
But what caught my attention lately was the fact that he’s been on an absolute rampage acquiring firms all over the world. He first announced his arrival in Formula1 by plastering the Kingfisher logo over the ToyotaF1 team cars. You see, the colours matched, thats the reason why he probably selected Toyota. He’s the kind of sponsor F1 should have, you know. Work hard, party harder. Because his parties were amazingly lavish and gave the Red Bull F1 parties a run for their money. Even Bernie, F1 supremo, absolutely loved them, and who wouldn’t, when you get such fine free parties.Jokes apart, India’s F1 prospects certainly received a shot in the arm.
He then set his sights on Deccan Aviation and after numerous bitter-sweet press comments, he picked up a 26% in it. We knew that was coming, because Deccan certainly wasn’t in a good shape, Capt. Gopinath was off his rocker for a bit, and it badly needed some deep pocketed investor, like Dr. Mallya
In June, he caught hold of a Scottish whisky maker by the name White and Mackay for almost £600 million.And we know(er… I don’t actually) what good whisky the Scotch brew. That was a good wake up call for anyone who discounted Dr. Mallya and United Breweries.
And now, in his personal capacity, he has brought a controlling stake in the Spyker Ferrari F1 team for a sum of £80 million. Which means that our poor Indian chaps like Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok can expect to land themselves a seat at SpykerF1. Woot woot!! The Indian flag will hopefully soar again over the grandstands and we all know whom to thank. Cheers,hic!
Stop press!!
This morning when I got up, I read in HT Mint that he’s going to buy a controlling stake in a US based private aircraft manufacturer called Epic for $200mn. Will this man ever stop?? Your guess is as good as mine…
