VIJAY MALLYA: THE TYCOON WHO GAVE BIG BUSINESS A BAD NAME

The UB Group is done for. In his lifetime, Vijay Mallya inherited it, and as Mint put it memorably in an earlier piece, “made it bigger, had fun, lost an empire, and walked away into the sunset (almost)”. In this unfolding tale, you could see him as a tragic hero in the Shakespearean mode, a Macbeth, brought to his knees by hamartia. Or you could view him as spoilt scion who squandered a group’s sterling reputation and by choosing flamboyance over farsightedness, glamour over governance, was reduced to selling the flagship to save the fleet.

Either way, you would do well not to shed too many tears for the self-styled king of good times. Eventually, even for him, it was time for last drinks, but Mallya refused to leave.

For this is a man who always wanted more. At its peak, the UB Group was a sprawling conglomerate with interests in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, paints, petrochemicals and plastics, batteries, food and carbonated beverages. Besides liquor from United Breweries, McDowell’s and Carew, it sold squashes, ketchup and jams from Kissan and Dipy’s, pesticides from Finit, Singer sewing machines, chocolates from Cadbury and drugs from Hoechst and Roussel