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…

McLaren Mercedes MP4 20 in Mumbai

So, Johnnie Walker wants to announce that it has arrived in India and that too in style. So what better way to do it than use their association with the McLaren Mercedes F1 team.

They go out in all force and print ads in leading newspapers accross the country “Going Soon..” on 23rd and 24th December at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse.

And when we go there, we find out its meant only for members of that club, a sort of VIP event as of 23rd. But i’m a rebel. A born one, and never the one to let go of things so easily. I barged right in and had a word with the Johnnie Walker Managing Director(the man was really cool and nice, i must admit). The press was waiting, and so were some people who had come from far off places like Bangalore. They had to take the covers of the car.

And cellphones weren’t allowed as well. Why you ask? There was a race in progress, so due to the reasons best known to the club, phones were a strict no-no at that goddamned time. So I took permission of at least 4 top people in the club saying that we were from Johnnie Walker itself(God bless that Johnnie Walker MD for giving us this cracker of a idea) before clicking away some 4-5 photos. Good adventure. Whew!!