Kingfisher / Etihad: a brave investment
If Vijay Mallya pulls this off it will be a moment of magic and/or poor judgement.
Etihad Airways, the Gulf carrier, is on the cusp of buying a stake in the debt-encumbered Kingfisher Airlines – the airline that has been grounded since October. Continue reading »
Mallya’s Spirits run high
Shares in United Spirits rallied 34.7 per cent on Monday reaching a multi-year high of 1,832.95 rupees, in a wave of relief that a long-awaited deal seems finally to be going ahead.
After Mumbai’s markets closed on Friday, the world’s largest spirits company, Diageo, formally announced it will pay £1.2bn to take a 53.4 per cent stake in the Indian drinks group. Continue reading »
Diageo’s lifeline: will it save Kingfisher?
It looks like Vijay Mallya may finally have been thrown a lifeline for his embattled Kingfisher Airlines. But will it be enough?
After four long years of discussions, rumours and speculation, Diageo, the world’s largest spirits company, agreed on Friday to buy a 53.4 per cent stake in his flagship United Spirits for more than $2bn. The attraction is obvious: Diageo gains great access to India’s 1.2bn consumers and the world’s biggest whisky market. But for Mallya, the stakes are even higher. Continue reading »
Kingfisher: losses widen as company sits in ‘holding pattern’
Another quarter, another bad loss for India’s embattled Kingfisher Airlines. Billionaire Millionaire liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s carrier reported a net loss of $138.5m in the quarter ended in September, widening from the $86.1m loss during the same quarter last year. Revenues were just $36.8m, down 87 per cent from $284.5m, according to results on Thursday.
The company headlined its press release, “Kingfisher Airlines Limited Announces Quarterly Results in line with its expectations”, and called its current status “a holding pattern”. That’s one way to put it. Continue reading »
Kingfisher: pin-ups before payments
In 2007, the NDTV Good Times channel was launched as a joint venture between Delhi broadcaster NDTV and United Breweries, owned by billionaire Vijay Mallya, the self-styled ‘king of the good times’.
Now a warrant is out for Mallya’s arrest and the good times are no longer rolling. But that hasn’t stopped NDTV and United’s Kingfisher beer launching their annual hunt for the Kingfisher Calendar Girl, with Mallya’s son Sid in a starring role. Continue reading »
Kingfisher: no wages, no fly
In what seems like a near-monthly occurrence, India’s Kingfisher Airlines cancelled flights all of its flights from Monday to Thursday because of labour unrest.
The civil aviation ministry said Monday that billionaire Vijay Mallya’s carrier cannot fly without certified technicians and engineers looking after its planes. Those engineers and technicians are on strike, along with some pilots, because – as seems to happen to Kingfisher and state carrier Air India employees on a fairly regular basis – they have not been paid in seven months. Continue reading »
United Sprits downgrade adds pressure to Diageo sale
For the better part of a year, rumours have floated that billionaire Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya was on the verge of saving one of his troubled companies by selling a stake in another. But which one?
After lots of rumours of deals involving his companies United Spirits, United Breweries and Kingfisher Airlines, a change in credit rating may force his han. Continue reading »
Mallya unlikely to have “good times” at AGMs
The annual general meetings of Indian companies are, by and large, fairly uncontroversial affairs (unless you are, say, Vedanta). It’s usually a softball affair that sometimes includes the singing of a song by certain shareholders inspired by the chairman’s greatness.
This week, billionaire liquor baron Vijay Mallya will face a series of AGMs for his United Spirits, United Breweries and Kingfisher Airlines, and odds are there won’t be any singing of songs. They promise to be rather more uncomfortable affairs. Continue reading »
Kingfisher suffers yet another rough quarter
Struggling Indian carrier Kingfisher Airlines waited until Saturday morning to release it’s latest quarter of disappointing results. The company suffered a $117.7m net loss, on $54.5m in revenues.
That was better than last quarter, which saw the company report its worst ever loss of $206.6m, but it’s hardly going help Kingfisher pay down its $1.5bn in debts, or the salaries of employees who haven’t been paid in months. Continue reading »
Corporate watch: whisky’s number 1 weighs up expansion
The Indian producer of the world’s number-one selling whisky, Officer’s Choice, has a few things to mull over. One of which is how to raise funds to fuel its expansion plans.
Allied Blenders & Distillers will come to a decision on how to raise Rs5bn ($90m) within the next 6-8 months, said Deepak Roy, chief executive of the privately-held company that owns Officer’s Choice – which, according to a July report by the UK-based International Wine & Spirits Research, sold 17.1m cases last year, compared to 16.7m for second-placed Johnny Walker. Continue reading »
Cricketers: the latest victims of Kingfisher’s woes
The woes of Vijay Mallya’s many employees are well known. The pilots of his Kingfisher Airlines regularly go on strike over his inability to pay their salaries.
Now, it seems, pilots aren’t the only ones affected by the King of Good Times and his recent run of very bad times – the players on Mallya’s Indian Premiere League of cricket team, Royal Challengers Bangalore, are also missing a few (hundred million) rupees. Continue reading »
Mallya: good money after bad?
Why would you sell a large stake in a very profitable drinks company in one of the world’s biggest markets? If you are Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya, the answer is – to prop up a failing airline – an airline that was started in the first place as a spin-off from one of your beers.
The FT reports that Mallya, the Indian billionaire, is close to selling a 13 per cent stake in United Breweries to Heineken. The FT’s James Fontanella-Khan suggested that the sale of the stake could be used to inject cash into the airline – and Indian commentators were in absolutely no doubt that it was the driving motive. Continue reading »
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