Vijay Mallya may be a pariah today with both the Congress and the BJP disowning him, but there was a time when who's who of India had served his Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) as its independent directors.
The airline, founded in 2005, saw distinguished people such as heart surgeon Dr Naresh Trehan, tennis great Vijay Amritraj, former chairman of LIC and Sebi G N Bajpai, ex-finance secretary Piyush Mankad, Rediff India founder Diwan Arun Nanda and bankers of repute serving as its independent directors.
Bajpai introduced key reforms at Sebi and prepared LIC to face the onslaught of foreign insurance giants in India once the sector was deregulated. He was a member of the governing board of IIM-Lucknow. He was also chairman of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Stock Holding Corporation of India, apart from being on the board of companies like ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, General Insurance Corporation of India, Jindal Steel and Tata Chemicals.
But unlike these companies, Mallya's ambitious plans for KFA were taking it towards its doom. The fortunes of the airline, which never reported a profitable quarter, nosedived in 2007 when Mallya decided to buy Captain Gopinath's Air Deccan to fly abroad on its licence without waiting for five years as per rules. "Suddenly, we had a fleet of 100 planes and frankly it was just too much for us to handle," said a person, who was among the people running KFA.
Deccan founder G R Gopinath was on the combined airlines' board, but was eased out later as KFA subsumed his airline. Then financial losses mounted, flights were slashed and payments to everyone — employees, airports, oil companies, tax authorities and provident fund — stopped. This was the time when KFA saw an exodus of its independent directors.
Among the first to sense trouble in KFA and leave the board was Dr Trehan. The eminent heart surgeon had joined in October 2008 and quit in September 2010. This led to an exodus with other distinguished people disassociating themselves from the beleaguered airline. Amritraj quit in March 2012 on the ground that his travel schedule did not allow him to attend KFA board meetings. Within days, another independent director Anil Kumar Ganguly also quit, citing "indifferent health".
16/03/16 Saurabh Sinha/The Times Of India
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The airline, founded in 2005, saw distinguished people such as heart surgeon Dr Naresh Trehan, tennis great Vijay Amritraj, former chairman of LIC and Sebi G N Bajpai, ex-finance secretary Piyush Mankad, Rediff India founder Diwan Arun Nanda and bankers of repute serving as its independent directors.
Bajpai introduced key reforms at Sebi and prepared LIC to face the onslaught of foreign insurance giants in India once the sector was deregulated. He was a member of the governing board of IIM-Lucknow. He was also chairman of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Stock Holding Corporation of India, apart from being on the board of companies like ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, General Insurance Corporation of India, Jindal Steel and Tata Chemicals.
But unlike these companies, Mallya's ambitious plans for KFA were taking it towards its doom. The fortunes of the airline, which never reported a profitable quarter, nosedived in 2007 when Mallya decided to buy Captain Gopinath's Air Deccan to fly abroad on its licence without waiting for five years as per rules. "Suddenly, we had a fleet of 100 planes and frankly it was just too much for us to handle," said a person, who was among the people running KFA.
Deccan founder G R Gopinath was on the combined airlines' board, but was eased out later as KFA subsumed his airline. Then financial losses mounted, flights were slashed and payments to everyone — employees, airports, oil companies, tax authorities and provident fund — stopped. This was the time when KFA saw an exodus of its independent directors.
Among the first to sense trouble in KFA and leave the board was Dr Trehan. The eminent heart surgeon had joined in October 2008 and quit in September 2010. This led to an exodus with other distinguished people disassociating themselves from the beleaguered airline. Amritraj quit in March 2012 on the ground that his travel schedule did not allow him to attend KFA board meetings. Within days, another independent director Anil Kumar Ganguly also quit, citing "indifferent health".
16/03/16 Saurabh Sinha/The Times Of India
