Mallya's ship is sinking

New Delhi: A deal between ICICI and SREI Infrastructure Finance may well have triggered the beginning of the end for Vijay Mallya. ICICI Bank, one of the key lenders and shareholders in Kingfisher Airlines, sold the last of its close to Rs 600 crore loans to the Kolkata based SREI.
The deal saw ICICI selling its loan portfolio worth Rs 430 crore (Srei Venture Capital, a debt fund) and transferring all the collateral given by Mallya and UB Group along with it to SREI. Interestingly, this includes the personal guarantee of Mallya, and as newspapers speculated about four per cent of United Spirits shares. Yes, epitaphs have been written in the past, but the larger than life persona of VJM has managed to stay afloat, nay even survive all this long. In many ways, he is like Houdini always managing to get out of a tight corner.
This time, though, things may be different. And one is not talking about Kingfisher Airlines (KFA). At the core of Mallya's problems is that he has pledged over time large tranches of equity in his liquor business as collateral to stave off the creditors.
04/07/12 Sandeep Bamzai/Mail Today/msn.com

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Categories: Kingfisher Jul 2012