Bengaluru: Vijay Mallya, who owes over Rs 7,200 crore debt — taken to run the defunct Kingfisher Airlines — on Sunday accused the media of hunting him and that they were looking at the wrong places in the United Kingdom.
“I am being hunted down by media in UK. Sadly they did not look in the obvious place. I will not speak to media so don't waste your efforts," Mallya wrote on the micro-blogging site, Twitter.
Mallya, 60, took a Jet Airways flight to London on March 2, 2016 as regulators and investigation agencies became aggressive after public pressure increased to recover the loans, for which he stood personal guarantee. Details of his whereabouts in London are not known, but Mallya owns a sprawling villa in the city’s outskirts.
The UB Group chairman, who built India's largest liquor and beer company before he sold majority stake in them to British liquor major Diageo and Dutch beer brand Heineken, respectively to raise funds to run Kingfisher Airlines. In the process, he also gave personal guarantees to banks to raise additional funds.
"Yes, there was trouble in the account; the account was already stressed. He wanted another opportunity to try and turn it around. We felt it was right for him to get that opportunity, but just as we risked money, we also asked that he put in a personal guarantee," State Bank of India chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya told Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7's Walk the Talk programme. "That's the reason why we have gone to him and not only after the assets of Kingfisher Airlines, because the guarantee was given by him, a guarantee was given by the holding company. We are going to go for recovery against all three."
13/03/16 Business Standard
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“I am being hunted down by media in UK. Sadly they did not look in the obvious place. I will not speak to media so don't waste your efforts," Mallya wrote on the micro-blogging site, Twitter.
Mallya, 60, took a Jet Airways flight to London on March 2, 2016 as regulators and investigation agencies became aggressive after public pressure increased to recover the loans, for which he stood personal guarantee. Details of his whereabouts in London are not known, but Mallya owns a sprawling villa in the city’s outskirts.
The UB Group chairman, who built India's largest liquor and beer company before he sold majority stake in them to British liquor major Diageo and Dutch beer brand Heineken, respectively to raise funds to run Kingfisher Airlines. In the process, he also gave personal guarantees to banks to raise additional funds.
"Yes, there was trouble in the account; the account was already stressed. He wanted another opportunity to try and turn it around. We felt it was right for him to get that opportunity, but just as we risked money, we also asked that he put in a personal guarantee," State Bank of India chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya told Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7's Walk the Talk programme. "That's the reason why we have gone to him and not only after the assets of Kingfisher Airlines, because the guarantee was given by him, a guarantee was given by the holding company. We are going to go for recovery against all three."
13/03/16 Business Standard
