Word: mallya
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Vijay Mallya, taking over foreign companies is routine stuff. By building and buying everything from airlines to agrochemicals, he has created a $2 billion conglomerate. But he could be forgiven for taking a little added satisfaction in the recent $1.18 billion acquisition of scotch-whisky producer Whyte & Mackay by his UB Group, based in Bangalore, India. United Breweries has come full circle since the days of empire, when the firm was founded by Scotsman Thomas Leishman in 1915. It wasn't until India gained independence from Britain in 1947 that the first Indian director was appointed--Vittal Mallya, Vijay...
...head of the third biggest spirits producer in the world, Mallya, a flamboyant, bejeweled billionaire, is in a position to be the arbiter of peace in the whisky wars--or to mix it up further. Last year Mallya was so incensed by the SWA's whisky edicts that he called a press conference to vent. "This imposition of British imperialism is unacceptable," he said. Maybe he'll tell the SWA so himself at its next board meeting. Now that he owns 9% of scotch production, he is eligible to join the group. "I'm sure the rest of the industry...
...Mallya's billion-dollar investment will get him more than a seat in the clubhouse. "It really gives him a good portfolio," says Alan Gray, author of the Scotch Whisky Industry Review for Edinburgh analysts Sutherlands. "It has brands like Whyte & Mackay. And the Isle of Jura and the Dalmore single malts are the icing on the cake." The acquisition also provides UB with a ready supply of scotch to blend into Indian whisky and to export to India and China. UB plans to double production at the Invergordon distillery within a year, creating the biggest whisky plant...
...Sitting in his red Mercedes, Mallya lights another cigarillo and declares that people are coming to his campaigns in ever larger numbers. What they are coming for, though, is another matter. At Kolar, unemployed young men press their faces to the tinted windows of the car, gaping at the flashing lights on his stereo system, the plush seats and the attractive women who sometimes join Mallya's extensive entourage on his whistle-stops...
...Bewildered by Mallya's unprecedented campaign, some members of Karnataka's political intelligentsia speculate that it's merely part of a cynical political conspiracy. One favorite theory is that he's being used by the state's unpopular chief minister, S.M. Krishna, to divide the opposition before the next elections. So far, however, the chattering classes have ignored the most obvious possibility: that politics in India, bringing the momentary adoration of millions, might provide thrills of self-gratification more intoxicating than those that even the greatest wealth...