Vijay Mallya buys Ferrari Spyker

By abhishek at 7 October, 2007, 1:37 am

“Hu la la la hu le ooooo” chanted the entire West Indies Cricket team back in 1997 when India toured the exotic country. They were endorsing Vijay Mallya’s United Brewery’s (Now, UB) Kingfisher Beer. He was once upon a time called the Beer Baron. Today, it will be unfair to confer him with that tag since he has moved on and has created another identity for himself. After acquiring a string of companies and creating the Kingfisher Airlines, now, Mallya’s serial entrepreneurial instincts have made him acquire the Formula 1 Team, Ferrari Spyker from the Mol Family in Amsterdam.�

UB has got nothing to do with this $124 million deal. It is all his personal money at stake. So, why did he do it? Did his love for fast cars get the better of him. Well, it would be preposturous of us to assume that, wouldn’t it? Let’s not insult his intelligence! We are very liberal in squadering terms like ‘Visionary’ to many who do not deserve 1/100th of that respect, it would be wrong on our part not to credit that adjective to Mallya who has learned after making his share of misjudgements early in his life! A million mistakes and a couple of million learnings later Mallya build his empire which he almost sent down the drains after his pop had passed away.

Coming back to the deal…This is the first time that an Indian is involved in the Formula 1 business. Dutch sportscar maker Spyker NV, the erstwhile owners of this team sealed the agreement with Mallya as of Oct 6 ‘07. While the team is one of the lowest performing ones on the circuit, it is still one of the 12 teams which competes at the Formula 1 level. Also, with a flamboyant Indian being associated with the team, it will garner most of the 500 million viewership from India; a good percentage of which already follows the sport dedicatedly. As I write this, Lewis Hamilton is racing away to yet another victory in the Shanghai Grand Prix and my friends have locked themselves up in an apartment to enjoy the adrenalin. So, the market� exists! And the advertisers know it too! Mallya says that the name of the new team will have the word, ‘India’ in it! “Awwwwwww,” that son of a gun can write an encyclopedia on PR!�

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