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NEWSMAKER - Liquor baron Mallya guzzles rival
By Narayanan Madhavan
BANGALORE (Reuters) - India's undisputed liquor king, Vijay Mallya, is a flashy racehorse owner, but moves like a chess grandmaster to build his business.
Clinching proof came on Monday when his firm, McDowell & Co. Ltd., announced a $195 million deal to buy up to 54 percent of main rival Shaw Wallace & Co. from the widow of the man he loved to fight.
The endgame deal will hoist the 49-year-old's UB Group, the umbrella for liquor holdings that include Kingfisher beer, up two places to the number two slot in the global spirits game, behind Diageo Plc.
Annual sales will touch 60 million cases, led by flagship United Breweries Ltd., in which Britain's Scottish and Newcastle Plc bought 37.5 percent last year.
The acquisition confirmed that liquor is the mainstay of Mallya's many-hued business empire, which touches software, publishing, fashion, rock music and an impending entry into low-cost aviation.
He is chairman of Aventis Pharma, the Indian arm of drug maker Sanofi. He owns a stud farm that routinely breeds winning horses.
The outspoken Mallya somehow also finds time to be a lawmaker in the Indian parliament's upper house, representing a fringe pro-farmer party that is seen by critics as a platform for industrialists.
The twice-married father of three is a disciple of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a Hindu guru popular with the rich and the famous.
"Vijay Mallya lives life to the fullest, the poster boy of consumption and consumerism, surrounding himself with everyone's idea of the rich life: Fast cars, beautiful women, designer houses, horses, jewellery and art," high-life watcher Kishore Singh wrote in the Business Standard daily this year.
BUSINESS-LIKE FATHER
A native of the southern city of Bangalore, Mallya inherited a smaller operation when his quiet, business-like father died in 1983, when Mallya was 28. The UB Group's sales were less than four million cases at that time.
While the liquor business grew steadily, the bearded Mallya was often noticed for his flashy suits and baritone sound bites.
After lacklustre flings in petrochemicals and engineering, he acquired the global business of Berger Paints in 1988, only to sell the business at a profit eight years later.
Mallya was more in the news for his horses or bitter rivalry with Manohar Rajaram Chhabria, who acquired control of Shaw Wallace in the mid-1980s.
Mallya tried to gain from fissures in the Chhabria family before and after Manohar's death in 2002.
The UB Group is now in the process of buying control of Herbertsons Ltd., the maker of Bagpiper whisky, after an out-of-court deal with Manohar's brother Kishore.
"I love the good things in life and I have no qualms admitting it. I work hard - very hard - and also party hard," Mallya told an interviewer.
Mallya, who also sponsors rock shows and soccer teams, is now trying to overturn the rules of low-cost airlines.
Kingfisher Airlines, due to start in May with 10 aircraft, will have on-board ramp walks by model stewardesses sporting designer clothes, defying the industry's no-frill habits.
Mallya also owns a franchise to publish "Asian Age" newspaper.
