Have received dues settlement offer from Kingfisher: State Bank of India

Lenders to defunct Kingfisher Airlines on Wednesday said they have received an offer to settle loan from the company and they will examine the proposal.
Liquor baron Vijay Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines today submitted a proposal in the Supreme Court for repayment of Rs 4,000 crore out of the loan amount of Rs 6,903 crore to the consortium of banks, led by State Bank of India, by September this year. "The consortium of banks led by SBI confirms receipt of an offer for settlement of dues from Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. The bank, along with other consortium members, will examine the same," SBI said in a statement here today. The statement, however, did not disclose the amount Mallya has offered to repay to the banks. Today's proposal for repayment in the Supreme Court was submitted by Mallya, Kingfisher, United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd and Kingfisher Finvest (India) Ltd. A bench comprising Justices Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman allowed the consortium of banks a week's time to respond to the proposal and posted the matter for further hearing on April 7. On March 9, the government had informed the apex court that Mallya, who is facing legal proceedings for allegedly defaulting on loans of over Rs 9,000 crores from various banks, had left the country a few days back.
30/03/16 PTI/Mid Day

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Banks put Kingfisher Airlines brands on the block for Rs 366cr

Mumbai: Lenders to Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) have put on the block the trademarks of the airline, including the famous flying bird logo which was adopted from the UB Group's iconic beer brand. The reserve price for the trademarks, which will be auctioned on April 30, has been fixed at Rs 366 crore. The trademarks include the tag lines 'Fly the Good Times', 'Funliner' and 'Fly Kingfisher' in addition to the brand name and the logo, which have been separately copyrighted by Kingfisher.
KFA had pledged the trademarks as collateral with banks while obtaining loans — a standard practice worldwide. At its peak, when it was close to being the largest private airline in the country with international flights to the UK, the brand was valued at Rs 4,100 crore by Grant Thornton. But with the airline being grounded for over three years, the brand has suffered in valuation terms.
Also, Kingfisher promoter Vijay Mallya had an interest in the KFA brand as the image was shared with Kingfisher beer. The beer is owned by then group company United Breweries, which could not advertise in India as there are laws against liquor advertisements. United Breweries is now controlled by Heineken. "United Breweries owns the Kingfisher beer and water brands, and the airline brand holds no relevance to us," said the company's MD Shekhar Ramamurthy, speaking to TOI earlier this month. It is not known whether the banks' auction would change matters for the liquor company as it risks rivals acquiring the brand.
30/03/16 Times of India

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The many cases against Vijay Mallya

While Vijay Mallya is sits in London, mulling the right time for him to return to India, cases against him are piling up from several agencies and parties, all in a bid to recover their dues from the loans given to the once high-flying Kingfisher Airlines and United Breweries.

On March 18, Mallya was given more time by the Enforcement Directorate to appear for a hearing in Mumbai in the case of money laundering that led to the default of a loan given by IDBI. Now, he's been summoned to appear before the court on April 2.

Seventeen Indian banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) had lent over Rs 7,000 crore to Kingfisher Airlines and United Breweries. After years of pursuance, SBI, United Bank of India and Punjab National Bank have declared SBI) had lent over Rs 7,000 crore to Kingfisher Airlines and United Breweries. After years of pursuance, SBI, United Bank of India and Punjab National Bank have declared Mallya a wilful defaulter.wilful defaulter.
30/03/16 Hitisha Jain/Daily News & Analysis

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Don’t harass employees after TDS is cut: CBDT

Mumbai: Several Kingfisher Airline employees have in recent weeks received income tax (I-T) demand notices. For some employees, these notices run into a few lakhs as they cover a three-year period beginning from the fiscal 2009-10. While tax was deducted against their salaries, it was not deposited by the company. Now the I-T department is once again asking the employees to pay such taxes, together with penal interest for the delay.
It is learnt that after some employees of Kingfisher Airlines staged protests and brought their predicament to the notice of the finance ministry, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued a memorandum. If income tax has been deducted at source against salary but the employer has not deposited the same, demand notices cannot be served on the employee for recovery of I-T, the CBDT reiterated in its memorandum dated March 11.
However, a few employees confirmed that the ground reality continues to be different and demand notices keep rolling out. A Bengaluru-based I-T official admits this is the case because of the computerized system at the tax department, which automatically issues such notices on seeing that the tax deducted has not been deposited (or credited against the employee's I-T record).
30/03/16 Times of India

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Pay dues honourably or face coercive action: Arun Jaitley to Mallya

New Delhi: In a stern warning to wilful defaulters like Vijay Mallya, finance minister Arun Jaitley said they should settle their dues honourably with the banks or else be ready to face "coercive action" by lenders and investigative agencies.
"I don't want to make any comments on individual cases but I think it's a responsibility of large groups like his (Vijay Mallya's) to honourably settle their dues with the banks," he told PTI in an interview here.
He further said that banks have certain collaterals of group companies of Vijay Mallya and will take legal action to recover dues that are in excess of Rs 9,000 crore.
"Banks have some securities. Banks plus other agencies have also coercive methods available with them through legal enforcement...these are all being investigated by relevant agencies," he said.
28/03/16 PTI/Times of India

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Mallya's debt case may be studied at IIM-A

Ahmedabad: Once Vijay Mallya was invited to deliver a lecture in Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kolkata. Now he is likely to become a study material of the IIM-A students due to his current debt travails. The IIM-A professors are mulling over project 'The Liquor Baron's debt fiasco' as a case study for the business school students.
According to the IIM-A sources, post-graduate students in finance and accounting faculty at the B-school are likely to study the case of Mallya who had allegedly fled away from the country with overdue of Rs 9,000 crore debt and its interest to various banks.
The Mallya debt case was also discussed in the class room by students and their faculties. It can be certainly a case study to discuss the aspect of ethics, corporate governance and brand management, said the sources.
The premium B-school students will also be taught on how stakeholders are affected with such cases. However, it is not yet known on how much in detail, the Mallya case will be taught.
26/03/16 Times of India

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Taxing times for Kingfisher Airlines staff continue

Mumbai: Shock and helplessness was writ on Sanjay Bahadur's face, a former employee of the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, when he received intimation from the Income Tax (I-T) department, asking for taxes of about Rs 34 lakh on the income he had earned between 2009 and 2012.

The fresh tax demand was raised with respect to assessment years 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13. The notice, served to Bahadur on March 17 and reviewed by Business Standard, states that his return for assessment year 2015-16 would be adjusted against the outstanding demand raised for the assessment years. "If no action taken by you immediately on this notice under Section 245, the demand as on that date will be considered for adjustment against your refund," read the notice.
This is the fourth notice Bahadur has received from the tax sleuths since 2013. The latest notice has details of the past three notices and highlights the non-payment of dues in the respective years. "I resigned from the airline in 2013, and since then I am filing tax returns. When the second demand notice was raised against me in 2014, I wrote to the tax officer seeking the withdrawal of the demand made by the department," said Bahadur.

In his letter dated December 2014, Bahadur had informed the assessing officer concerned in New Delhi that the return on income was appropriately filed by him and there was no outstanding liability on his part. He said the demand appeared because the tax deduction at source (TDS) had not been deposited by Kingfisher Airlines.

Bahadur is not the only one; many employees of Kingfisher are getting such notices. Employees, who have already been grappling with a cash crunch because of unpaid salaries for the past three years, are now contemplating legal recourse.
24/03/16 Shrimi Choudhary/Business Standard

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Kingfisher Airlines’ enduring brand equity

Most airlines in the world define their business as the business of flying. Lufthansa: “There is no better way to fly”. Jet Airways: “The joy of flying”. British Airways: “The world is waiting” and many others connote flying, travel or hospitality. Kingfisher Airlines, on the other hand, stood for the King of good times. This brand essence allows the brand to stretch across multiple categories. For categories across hospitality, lifestyle, fashion and beyond, the brand is potent in its promise.

From a personal invitation extended by Mallya himself, to the full service offering with TV screens and food, to the hospitality aboard the airline (my husband has a story of how his jacket came back with a button sewn back on it!), the airline spoilt us and became the benchmark for the best airline experience for a domestic airline not just in India, but in the world. (Vistara has learned this the hard way – after promising to be a full service airline, most of its customers felt cheated when they did not see a personal TV screen and falling far short in experience from a benchmark set by Kingfisher).
25/03/16 Alpana Parida/Business Line

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Vijay Mallya: The liquor baron who wanted to fly

As the dust settles down on Vijay Mallya’s flight to a less-troublesome existence in a London suburb, away from the heat that threatened to engulf him in Bangalore, it is clear that more than anything else it was his flamboyance and flaunting of a lavish lifestyle that did the high-flying NRI industrialist in.

Be it the bankers, the officials, the taxmen, the media, the cops and his erstwhile and present employees whose hard-earned money he was not paying, all eyes were focused on this once-powerful individual who made it his business to live beyond his means and to show off his aristocratic style.

Mallya not only flaunted his wealth, but also his love for pretty women, his relish for liquor of which he was a baron and his indulgence in horse racing. In short, his lifestyle was the very antithesis of Indian hypocrisy and he was the very embodiment of what we like to hypocritically call sinfulness.

This is not to say that Mallya was not all pompousness and that he was not to be blamed for his indiscretions, which were legion. The scantily-clad calendar girls whose curves he laid bare reflected his extravagance and love for style. As he boasted in characteristic style, many, including media men, were eating out of his palms.
23/03/16 Kamlendra Kanwar/Daily News & Analysis

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Vijay Mallya's Airbus biz jet to be e-auctioned in May

The service tax department through a public notice issued on Tuesday announced the e-auction of an Airbus business jet, which it had seized from beleaguered industrialist Vijay Mallya in 2013 in a bid to recover its dues. On March 15, The Economic Times reported that the tax department is looking to recover “service tax dues” to the tune of Rs 812 crore.

The A319-133CJ business jet which is registered in India as VT-VJM — Vijay Mallya’s initials are VJM— is being e-auctioned by MSTC Ltd, a government of India enterprise.

Mallya, who is presently out of the country after having stepped down as chairman of United Spirits Limited, is being chased by various creditors of his erstwhile airline company Kingfisher Airlines, which owes Rs 9,000 crore to a slew of public sector banks.
Last week, a banking consortium led by the State Bank of India, was unsuccessful in trying to auction Kingfisher House, a 3,988 square metre property of Kingfisher Airlines in Mumbai. The reserve price of Rs 150 crore for the property was said to be too steep.
According to the public notice by the service tax department, the e-auction of Mallya’s private jet will take place on May 12 and 13. Prospective buyers can inspect the aircraft from April 2 to May 10. It, however, did not mention what the base auction price of the aircraft would be. The average list price of a new A319 aircraft as of 2015 was $88.6 million.
23/03/16 Anshul Dhamija/Forbes

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United Breweries says no to Kingfisher airline brand

Mumbai: United Breweries, a likely candidate to buy the Kingfisher airline brand, says it is not interested in owning the carrier's label.
"United Breweries owns the Kingfisher beer and water brands, and the airline brand holds no relevance to us," said the company's managing director Shekhar Ramamurthy. The local brewer's Dutch promoter Heineken too has said that it is not interested in buying the Kingfisher airline brand.
Lenders to Kingfisher Airlines, grounded since October 2012, are looking to recover dues worth Rs 9,000 crore through sale of its assets, including the carrier's brand.
Companies prefer to own the rights to the flagship brand across categories even if they don't have a presence in certain business segments. This is done to protect the trademark from being used by other players. Among Indian conglomerates, parent brands such as Tata, Godrej and Larsen & Toubro are registered in a host of business areas.
The Kingfisher airline brand is worth much less today compared to its peak time valuation of Rs 4,100 crore as estimated by Grant Thornton, said brand consultants.
23/03/16 Reeba Zachariah/Times of India

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Kingfisher Employees May Finally Get Their Dues, As Vijay Mallya Draws Up Fresh Plans To Clear His Debts

Vijay Mallya and his advisers are working to revise a debt repayment offer that has been rejected by banks to make it more acceptable to them, people aware of the development said. He's conducting a review of his assets in consultation with a legal firm that has financial expertise and may make an offer of staggered payments or a one-time settlement, they said.
This has been prompted by a realization, according to the people cited above, that he needs to be personally accountable as a business leader about employee welfare. Most employees were left high and dry when the airline promoted by Mallya stopped flying in 2012 even as he remained in the public eye for throwing lavish parties and owning stakes in cricket and Formula 1 teams.
"He has hated the term absconder and wants to show that he would have sat down with the banks so that he can revisit the country whenever he wishes peacefully rather than be compared to swindlers," said a person close to him. There was no response to an email sent to Mallya on the subject. Bankers who are seeking more than Rs 9,000 crore in loans and interest from Kingfisher Airlines say a revised offer of some kind should be forthcoming.
21/03/16 Kala Vijayraghavan & Saloni Shukla/India Times

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No takers for Kingfisher House

The auction for Kingfisher House, one of Kingfisher Airlines promoter Vijay Mallya’s flagship properties in Mumbai, ended on Thursday with lenders to the grounded airline failing to get any bids.

The e-auction was conducted by SBI Cap Trustee, which is an arm of SBI Caps, the merchant banking arm of State Bank of India. SBI Cap Trustee Company had taken possession of the 2,401 sq. m property in February 2015. The e-auction was conducted under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest (SARFAESI) Act 2002.

"There were no bidders. I think the higher reserve price was the reason for it,” said an official involved with the auction conducted by SBI Caps for a consortium of banks led by public sector lender State Bank of India.

The reserve price for the property at Andheri was fixed at Rs. 150 crore.

The lenders' move follows the airline’s failure to pay banks their dues. As on January 31, 2014, KFA owes banks Rs 6,963 crore. All the banks had classified the loans as non-performing. Some banks, including SBI and United Bank of India, have declared Mr Mallya a wilful defaulter.
17/03/16 The Hindu

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Banks will go all out to recover money from Mallya: FM

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday asserted that banks were going all out to recover every penny given to Vijay Mallya, who has left the country without repaying the loans to Kingifsher Airlines totalling more than Rs 9,000 crore.

At the India Today conclave, the Finance Minister said the Mallya case is pending in court and every government agency is going to take strong action wherever he has violated the law.

Referring to the goods and services tax (GST), Jaitley said all parties had a consensus on it, which itself is a "great sign". The government is planning to bring a constitution amendment Bill on GST in the second half of the Budget session which would begin from the latter half of April. The session went into a recess from Thursday.
17/03/16 Business Standard

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Kingfisher Airlines allegedly inflated brand valuation to Rs 4000 crore

New Delhi: Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) has hit further turbulence with the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) investigating alleged overvaluation of its brand at Rs 4,100, which was aimed at raising bigger loans from banks.
Financial advisory firm Grant Thornton has also come under scanner as it certified the value of KFA at Rs 4,100 crore in 2011, when commercial airlines were piling up losses, a senior official said. Banks are reported to have valued the airline at a mere Rs 160 crore when they carried out their own internal exercise. SFIO will investigate as to how Grant Thornton arrived at such a high valuation.
SFIO is looking into whether the valuation was deliberately inflated to get more funds from banks and siphon off money for purposes other than proposed investment in the airline. While SFIO was already probing KFA for financial irregularities and fund diversion, the agency has widened its ambit to probe the high valuation.
Grant Thornton India told MAIL TODAY on Wednesday that it stands by KFA's brand valuation report and is ready to provide all required information to the authorities. "We fully stand by our brand valuation report, which we believe was appropriate in the context of when it was done and the purpose for which it was done," Grant Thornton said in a statement. "Grant Thornton will obviously be pleased to offer all the information we have in connection with the matter to the appropriate authorities, and support any investigations," the statement added.
17/03/16 Mail Today/Business Today

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Vijay Mallya row: CBI wants Airbus to be made party in IDBI-Kingfisher Airlines loan case

New Delhi: The CBI is trying to make aircraft manufacturer Airbus a party to the money laundering case against business tycoon Vijay Mallya over a Rs 900 crore loan from IDBI bank, sources said on Tuesday.

CNN-IBN has learnt that a letter rogatory (LR) will be sent to France in 15-20 days to get details of Airbus's deals with Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines.
The agency would probe whether the bank sent money directly to Airbus as part of KFA's deal with the aircraft maufacturer, and whether some of this was diverted to Mallya's intermediary's to be siphoned off to tax havens.
KFA had reportedly placed orders and made pre-delivery payments for Airbus' wide-body commercial jets like A380 and A350, but they were withdrawn later.
15/03/16 IBN Live

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Did netas help Mallya: CBI to 2 ex-CFOs

New Delhi: Inching closer towards gathering more concrete evidence against Vijay Mallya, the CBI on Tuesday interrogated former chief financial officers of the UB Group, Ravi Nedungadi and A Raghunathan, in connection with the alleged loan fraud and diversion of siphoned money. The duo was interrogated separately by a CBI team in Mumbai and their versions and answers are being analysed.
Sources also informed that the CBI was in the process of getting letters issued to the UK, Mauritius, Cayman Islands and France amongst others to get details and "documented evidences" about the properties owned/used and financial transactions carried out by Mallya and his associates.
Regarding the interrogation, sources said the agency's focus was to understand in detail the role of these two CFOs and their alleged collusion with Mallya in getting the banks to disburse money. They were given a questionnaire prepared by the CBI team. In the main, they were asked to open up on the information they had about some political functionaries who Mallya had been in touch with around the time the loans were being disbursed, sources claimed.
16/03/16 Raj Shekhar/Times of India

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Labour Ministry gives clean chit to Vijay Mallya's defunct company Kingfisher Airlines

New Delhi: The Union labour ministry has given a clean chit to Vijay Mallya's now defunct Kingfisher Airlines in the absence of any complaint against the company. However, it has constituted a squad of enforcement officers for verifying compliance in respect of all its employees as payment of contributions stopped after September 2015.

"There is no complaint available on record either from members/Union regarding non-payment of EPF (employees' provident fund) dues by the company," the ministry said in a statement on March 15.

The statement came two days after labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya said he would examine all issues in this regard.

The women employees of the airlines had recently alleged in an open letter that the company did not pay salaries but kept depositing PF due to fear of action from the authorities. Mallya is facing legal proceedings for allegedly defaulting on loans of over Rs 9,000 crore from various banks.
15/03/16 Yogima Seth Sharma/Economic Times

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ICAI notice to Kingfisher Airlines' auditors

New Delhi: Institute of Chartered Accountants of India has set up a financial review board to look into the alleged financial irregularities at United Spirits, UB group and Kingfisher Airlines in the past few years. The institute has also issued notices to the auditors of United Spirits, UB group and other group companies to join the probe. Its president M Devaraja Reddy confirmed to ET that a panel has been set to look into the role of auditors in the alleged fund diversion case. USL accounts were audited by Price Waterhouse, Walker, Chandiok & Co and several other firms. "If auditors are found guilty, they will be banned, as we did in the Satyam case," Reddy added.
16/03/16 Rajat Arora/Economic Times

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Kingfisher Airlines Owes About Rs. 295 Crore To Airport Authority Of India

Defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes the Airport Authority of India (AAI) Rs. 294.57 crore and three cases in the court have already been initiated in this regard, government said today.

During the Question Hour in Rajya Sabha, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said that of these three cases, one is a recovery suit filed at the High Court in Mumbai while the other two are bounced cheque cases, which are slated to come up in court later this month.    

Total dues worth Rs. 710.14 crore are owed by private airlines to the AAI, Mr Raju said, adding among the other airlines which owed money to the AAI were Indigo (Rs. 71.81 crore), Jet Airways (Rs. 41.16 crore) and Spicejet (Rs. 63.28 crore).

As members pressed for more details, Mr Raju said legal processes have been initiated and added that "this should not have ever happened but we cannot set the clock back". He said the government would try not to make the "mistakes of the previous government."
15/03/16 PTI/NDTV 

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