Slide 1

Hello, and good afternoon.

We’re team 7 and today we’re going to tell you the story behind one of the most notorious
figures in the Indian business world - Vijay Mallya.

Slide 2
These are the points we’ll be covering today.

Slide 3
So to get started, Kingfisher is a brand that almost every Indian is familiar with. It’s best
known for being the most recognizable beer brand in India.

Slide 4
And it was Vijay Mallya, the Chairman of United Breweries who launched Kingfisher beer.

Kingfisher beer is so popular that people in India actually went from saying “Give me a beer”
to “Give me a Kingfisher”. This even holds true today!

However, in a country like India back in the 80s, alcohol was still considered largely taboo.
Advertising alcohol directly or indirectly is strictly prohibited by the law. And that’s when Vijay
Mallya decided to “become the brand”. He used his lavish and extravagant lifestyle to market
Kingfisher and thereby became one of the most recognizable figures in India. - And also, one
of the richest men in Asia.

He was known for throwing extravagant parties, buying massive properties across the globe
and that’s how VIjay came to be known as “The King of Good Times”

But unfortunately, Vijay’s ambition didn’t end there. He wanted to be known across the
world. And that’s when he had the idea of launching Kingfisher Airlines.

Slide 5
So now United Breweries has two main businesses.

When Mallya became chairman of the company after his father’s death, he began acquiring
smaller rivals and new distilleries, introducing new products, and forging joint ventures. All of
which were immensely successful considering that at this time India was on the cusp of
transforming into a consumer economy. It was a perfect storm that allowed Vijay to
transform how India viewed alcohol and drinking culture.

And so by 2005, Vijay Mallya had control of half of India’s whisky, beer and rum market.

He used these profits to start his airline business - Kingfisher Airlines. Kingfisher Airlines was
meant to be a low-cost airline that would make flying accessible to the masses while still
giving customers a luxury experience.

At its peak, Kingfisher Airlines carried about a quarter of Indian domestic travellers on a fleet
of roughly 70 planes.
But unfortunately that low-cost vision didn’t last very long. Vijay started expanding his airline
into a luxury fleet. And that was the beginning of the end of Kingfisher Airlines.

Slide 6
To complete his transformation of Kingfisher, Vijay infamously acquired Deccan Air; a failing
low cost carrier that he purchased at a severely inflated price of $40 million. The reason
behind this purchase was the Indian law that stated that Airlines needed to be in operation
for at least 5 years in order to operate international flights. Since Kingfisher Airlines was only
a year old, Vijay needed to acquire an older company to begin international flights
immediately.

This move is often what people single out as the core reason that Kingfisher Airlines failed.

Neelam Mathews, a journalist with Aviation Week said “He was running a five-star airline,
and then he bought a low-cost airline. But he could not think low cost. For him, everything
had to be the greatest.”

And when a Canadian auditing company released a report on Kingfisher’s losses, all of
Kingfisher Airline’s problems came to light
- Listed in 2006 and never saw a single year of profit
- Failed to repay loans of over Rs.4000 crores (approx $500 million)
- One particular loan from IDBI Bank for approximately $200 million was acquired through
false pretences as Mallya already knew his company was making huge losses
- Kingfisher was finally grounded in October 2012, when staff who had been unpaid for
seven months walked off the job

Slide 7
So what hand did Vijay Mallya play in this? And why does he currently have more than a
dozen different lawsuits against him?

Slide 8
So the years leading up to the downfall of Kingfisher Airlines were very eventful for
Mr.Mallya.

- In 2007 he spent $110m to buy a Dutch Formula One team, Spyker, renaming it
Force India
- In January 2008, United Spirits paid $111m for a team in the Indian Premier League,
India’s biggest T20 cricket tournament
- And in 2015, in the midst of all the chaos when he owed large sums of money to
public banks and his thousands of employees, Vijay threw a 60th Birthday party and
even managed to invite the Spanish pop star Enrique Iglesias which was estimated
at around $2 million

Slide 9
And soon after, these were just some of the dozens of lawsuits against him:-
- Willful non payment of bank loans
- Money laundering from Kingfisher Airlines to his F1 team
 - Fraud and criminal conspiracy
- Misrepresentation of assets
- Non-payment of service tax
- And even a non-bailable arrest warrant

And somehow, despite all this, Vijay easily left the country and escaped to the UK where he
still currently is.

Ironically, all of this drama was enough to catch the world’s attention just as he had initially
wanted.

Slide 10
And he even featured in a Netflix show called “Bad Boy Billionaires of India”.

Slide 11
Here’s a small clip.

And that’s what began the story of a single tycoon’s greed. A man who was obsessed with
keeping up appearances and who thought he was untouchable by the law. I’ll hand over to
Weican to take you over the rest.