King-size Hubris

BENGALURU: It is not easy for a well-known face to escape public attention, especially if the person has a penchant to go hunting for it in the first place. But in 2016, businessman and liquor baron Vijay Mallya did just that when he whizzed through immigration at New Delhi and boarded a Jet Airways flight to London, leaving behind an empire in ruins and with the authorities at his heels.

Today, Mallya is one hearing away from being extradited back to India as the London High Court will hear the case soon.Vijay grew up under constant pressure to study hard or risk losing his family inheritance. “It created insecurity in him. He was a spendthrift from a young age but showed intelligence and confidence,” a close friend of his family said.

His father, Vittal Mallya, was a disciplined man and ensured that his son knew what leading a simple life entailed. When Vijay was at St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata, for a B.Com degree, he worked at the United Breweries offices in the city and would be sent to villages to understand simple living, a close family source said. Evidence suggests, of course, that the impact was the opposite.

After his father’s untimely death, he took over the reins and transformed the group into a major player, with a 50 per cent share of the Indian beer market. One of Vijay’s first targets for acquisition was Shaw Wallace, makers of  Royal Challenge whisky for which he reportedly struck a deal with Gulf-based Manu Chhabria, a Sindhi businessman to circumvent ownership laws. But Chhabria according to Mallya’s lawyers, pulled a fast one and took over Shaw Wallace, as Vijay’s name was not on the papers.
This was the first time the authorities acted against Vijay Mallya. In June 1985, he was arrested in Bengaluru by the Enforcement Directorate but he refused to be chastened. Later he said proudly,  “Arrest should be the last resort. I never absconded.” He also told newspersons separately: “People are jealous of the successful. I am successful.”

After this episode, he entered the fast food business. McDowell’s Pizza King’, a fast food chain, opened in New Delhi’s Connaught Place to huge queues. His second outlet in Mumbai however, was not so successful.Some time later, he launched ‘Thril’, a competitor to Coca Cola, but even this did not take off. He then toyed with the idea of bringing MTV to India but could not secure permissions. He invested in engineering companies, chemicals and fertilisers and construction too.

There were elements of a grand visionary in his self-image. For Bengaluru, Mallya proposed an elevated light rail transit system which gathered interest but no investment from the state which had put its money into a new airport.

“In 1991, he got a chance after liquor laws were relaxed. In just four years, the company was the world’s tenth largest and, by 2001, he was selling 26 million cases. And when Chhabria died, Shaw Wallace at last fell into Mallya’s empire,” explained a lawyer, who represented him before.Mallya went on to buy a cricket team, an airline, and entered politics, simultaneously investing in anything that caught his fancy. Consequently, however, his borrowing never stopped.

“Not less than 50 people, including me, had asked him to stay away from the airline industry. But knowing Mallya, he just wouldn’t listen. Of course, there were a few political friends in Delhi who brainwashed him into taking the plunge,” said an advocate who is now fighting his cases.And so it was that, with the launch of Kingfisher Airlines and the acquisition of the dying Deccan Airways, Mallya started losing altitude.