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United Spirits denied pursuing any stake sale of IPL team Royal Challengers Bengaluru, dismissing media reports as speculative. RCB won its first IPL trophy.
RCB has won the IPL trophy for the first time in its 18-year history. (File Photo: PTI)
United Spirits, which owns IPL champion Royal Challengers Bengaluru, on Tuesday said it was not pursuing any discussions on any stake sale of the IPL team. The statement comes after reports, which Diageo termed as “speculative in nature”, suggested that the British distiller is planning to offload its stake from the IPL franchise.
“The company would like to clarify that…media reports are speculative in nature and it is not pursuing any such discussions,” United Spirits said in a BSE filing.
Bloomberg has reported that Diageo Plc may seek a valuation up to $2 billion for the IPL franchise. It may be considered a part or all of the club. The stake sale reports came when the health ministry is pushing to ban tobacco and alcohol brands in the IPL and stop the indirect promotion of other unhealthy goods by sports personalities.
RCB has won the IPL trophy for the first time in its 18-year history. The long-awaited victory shot up the brand value of the IPL franchise, making it one of the most sought-after assets in sports. Virat Kohli, one of the popular Indian athlete with a massive social media following, has been associated with the franchise since the beginning. He is one of the reasons attributed to the mass popularity of the franchise.
Initially, RCB was bought by Vijay Mallya’s company, United Spirits, for $111.6 million, making it one of the costliest teams at the time. After failure of Kingfisher Airlines when Vijay Mallya couldn’t pay the debt to lenders, the franchise came into the hands of the British Distillers Diageo Plc after it acquired the stakes in United Spirits.
On the other hand, Vijay Mallya appeared on the podcast of a popular Youtuber Raj Shamani, where he spoke on his failure to take off Kingfisher Airline, his being called ‘Chor’, the bureaucratic hurdles in India to run a business, his conditions to come India and so on.
Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to markets, economy and companies. Having a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris has been previously asso…Read More
Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to markets, economy and companies. Having a decade of experience in financial journalism, Haris has been previously asso… Read More
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