Vijay Mallya Podcast: Rise & Downfall Of Kingfisher Airlines, Loans & RCB | FO364 Raj Shamani

Mr. Malia is out of the country. Sicker Baron Vijay Malia who find himself in a raging 9,000 cr loan default scam. Welcome on figuring out sir. Why are you doing this after 9? In India public opinion is very quickly formed and influenced by the media pasa loot. Hi, I'm Vijay Malian. So it's not just huge, it is and nothing else comes close. King Fisher is a class apart. VJ Mallay is you were the biggest airline in the country. Welcome aboard King Fisher Airlines India's biggest airline going to be there amongst the best airlines in the

world. What went wrong? So I went to Shri Pranabokuji then finance minister of India. I have to downsize this aine. I was told not to downsize King Fisher at that time. You continue, banks will support you. That is how it all started. Kingfisher Airlines has been forced to suspend all of its flights. Kingfisher Airlines has been struggling. At the time when you asked loan, the company was not doing that great. Please never forget I gave my personal guarantee. So all this narrative of chore people give you this kind of loan against collateral. They took shares

of King Visha Airlines at the double price. There's again a statement that your international employees were getting paid. Indian employees were not. The company in India had no money. It was UB's money of 260 crores. With the bank under the control of the government of Canada court said no. Multiple international courts, Switzerland authorities, one of the courts from UK, they also found you guilty for misrepresentation of funds. Do you ever feel sorry that you couldn't do anything? I apologize publicly to everyone for the failure of King Airlines. Here's what pissed people off that in your

private life you were enjoying. You had a grand birthday party, your 60th birthday party. Do you think you shouldn't have done that party? Why? Somebody mentioned that you took out €35 million and invested in buying properties in France. Rubbish. What happened between 2012 and 2015? I made four settlement offers to the banks which they refused to accept. 2015 CBI started investigating you. They found you ciphering the money. Third March 2016 case needs to be heard or needs to be represented in front of Supreme Court. Second March you left the bank. On 15th April, your suspension

came for your passport and 24th April was the revocation. Why didn't you reply? I'd like to show you something. Here is what is the biggest challenge of doing business in India? Government. It's in the Indian DNA. But how did you manage that before? Would there ever be exchange under the table as well? I'm not going to confirm or deny that because I leave it to your imagination. How do you make money now? Do you feel restricted now? What's your biggest fear now? Are you prepared for the worst? Have you ever imagined yourself actually going to

jail? Would you be willing to return to country if you're assured fair? If I am assured, absolutely. I will think about it seriously. But [Applause] this episode is not about glorifying a fugitive nor it is about justifying any wrongs. It's about asking the hard questions to the man at the center of one of the India's most controversial financial stories. After 9 years of complete media silence, Vijay Malia chose our podcast figuring out to speak publicly for the first time. I didn't do this podcast to celebrate him. I did it because I was curious. I read

his tweets. I heard the headlines, but I never heard the full side of the story because the tweets that he makes are different than what the headlines talk about him. There's a mismatch. As a podcaster, my job is to ask every uncomfortable question, and I did. Vijay Malia claims he never committed fraud. He says he wanted to pay back the loans, that his properties were seized and sold, and that he's being framed. He also says he's ready to face the consequences, whatever they may be, if he's given the fair chance of trial. I've tried to

cover his childhood, business building, the man behind the image, the rise, the fall, the good, the bad, and the ugly, the life before, and the life now. I'm not here to decide who's right or wrong. I trust the Indian judicial system to do that. This conversation is for those who want to listen, think and question. It's not about taking sides. It's about understanding all sides. Watch this episode with utmost sincerity and let me know in the comments what do you think. Welcome on figuring out sir. Thank you for doing this. And my objective of this

whole podcast is going to be that I want to know your side of story. There are so many things that we have heard. There are so many things which are probably right or wrong. I don't know what's going on. And I think apart from me, there are millions of Indians who want to know the same thing. You're highly talked about. I also feel that there are so many things which people have just heard and started building their own narrative about you. So I wanted to out of a in inquisitiveness, curiosity and b out of a

responsibility I wanted to take this forward. So thank you so much for doing this and thank you for giving us an opportunity. And the best thing which I really liked about this is when you came here and you said I'm ready to answer everything which you want to talk about. I don't think many people give that opportunity. So thank you for doing this. But the first question is why are you doing this after 9 years? There are thousands of people who must have reached out to you over the years. Why all of a sudden the

need after 9 years that okay I'll say yes and yes to us. Why? Very good question. Nice place to start. For the last nine years, I have been the subject of a vicious, relentless trial by media in India who as you have rightly pointed out have created so many narratives, negative narratives about me that I have become a lightning rod of public anger, being abused, called names, And that was very unfortunate both professionally and personally. So rather than try and take on this huge Indian media machine, I just prefer to keep quiet. Now, times have

changed and I can't help but recalling that when President Trump was inaugurated in the first press briefing by the White House press secretary, she said that a few seats were now going to be reserved for the very first time for people who represented new media or social media. I didn't even know that a podcast existed, let alone understanding what a podcast really meant until you told me and explained it to me in a manner that I got quite excited about because here is my opportunity to not only answer your questions but to say things that

I truly feel would never ever have been truthfully reported by the legacy media particularly in India. That's why I'm here. Why do you think nobody cared about hearing you then? In India, it's strange, but public opinion is very quickly formed and influenced by the media, more importantly by sensationalism. I still remember the anchor of one media channel in 2016 shouting and screaming on the television saying, "VJ Malia, I want to see you in jail clothes. I want to see you eat jail food." With an image of me in um in jail attire. What for? I

always wondered what for. Subsequently, nobody bothered to step back and think, but it was very easy to fling false accusations day after day and get away with it. One of the reasons I agreed to sit with you today is also because it is only very recently that finally the government of India ministry of finance has published a report their annual report in which they have acknowledged 14,100 crores recovered from me. Of course, this was following the finance minister's statement in parliament and the legacy media can't argue with that anymore. They can't put any spin on

it anymore. The debt recovery tribunal gave a judgment debt of 4,999 crores borrowed by kingfisher airlines not by Vijay Malia borrowed by kingfisher airlines of which Vijay Malia was one of the guarantors so what is the DRT judgment debt 4,999 crores plus 1,23 crores unapplied interest. Okay, which means notional interest that the banks had not even booked. Forget that the total of the unapplied interest and the principal was 6203 crores. Okay. And I was a guarantor. The government has recovered 14,100 crores from me. right now if I had done chi if I had duped the

banks where does this all add up till re very recently there was absolutely no official figure of recovery right so everybody the legacy media in particular wrote whatever they Ed right and I was in no position to contradict today after the government of India has acknowledged the recovery of 14,100 crores I think it's my turn to ask them what they have to say about it because you say that a lot of things about you are false narrative let's go down to from your childhood we speak from the beginning and you tell me everything that people

have been said people think it's wrong and I'll try to present the facts and the narratives which I have heard and which I have gathered through my research. All right. And if you're okay with counter somewhere, I'll counter you as well. No, please, please feel free to counter me. If there's something that you feel is debatable or you want to make a counterpoint, I'm ready for it. Perfect. because I feel that's my little responsibility out there to to hear the right side and the wrong side both and let then people think about it and let

them make the right call. That's fair. Perfect. So before even I ask you about childhood do you do you regret anything? I regret one thing which is that after all my hard work, all the value that I created in so many multiple ways that effectively the government of India and of course the media made me a zero from a hero and that's a fact of life that I have had to stomach and live with. Now whether that was justified or not is something that I'm sure will be encompassed in your own questions. Zero from a

hero. Let's talk about building of a hero first and we'll come down to zero again. So before the billionaire Vijay Malia, before the controversy, before all of this flamboyance and scandals and things that people talk about, who was Vijay Malia as a child? Where were you born? What did you do? How was your childhood? Tell me about it. Born in Kolkata, moved to a hometown Bangalore. Went back to Kolkata. did my schooling there, did my college education there in Kolkata and my upbringing under my father was a very normal I would say strict upbringing really.

Yes. Tell me an incident strict childhood. Two things. When I was still in school, class nine at La Martineer in Kolkata, my marks were not very good in class. I was a mid-ranker only because I took a lot of interest in sport and extracurricular activities. I didn't I you know concentrate fully on studies and my mark sheets. And he told me and I think most people know it. He was exceptionally intelligent. Uh was a product of the Dune School. I think topped his class. So he expected me to also top my class. Uh nevertheless he

said something to me which I think I remember till today. Two things made a profound impact. one, if you're not good enough, you are not going to step into my shoes. And the second thing he said, he said, "Do you realize that while I say step into my shoes, there may not be any shoes at all because the government and its then socialist policies may have taken everything away from us and the only thing I can leave to you is your education. So take it seriously." I think I repaid some amount of faith because um

for my last three years in school 9 10 11 I think I came within the top three in class and he was quite happy about that. So weren't you a little spoiled as child spoiled? Oh my god. I was anything but spoiled really. You had all the fancy toys. You had all the things that Absolutely no fancy toys at all. That's completely false narrative. I after I passed out of school and when I went to San Javier's college to study BCOM, my father was very clear, you go to college at 6:00 in the morning and

when you finish at 10:30, you go and work a full day at the office as a management trainee. I was put on a stipend of 400 rupees a month and that 400 rupees never increased right the way my time through college. So that's all I got 400 rupees a month and was working in those days fips and company limited old courthouse street in Kolkata every day after college. Aren't there stories that you used to go to college in a very fancy car and you removed the silencer just to show the the noise of your car,

the loudness of your car and you were always a show off, weren't you? I was no showoff at all. And the fancy car that I have was a secondhand standard herald. So where are these stories coming from? I don't know. People's narratives, people's perceptions. That's why it's important to correct those perceptions. You know, talking about noise, even a fat fat in Delhi makes a hell of a lot of noise. You don't have to drive a fancy car to make a noise down the street. So, you are telling me that all these stories of you having

a you having fancy toys, remote control cars, and then fancy cars with loud noises, all of this is false. Well, I may have tempered with the silencer of my car. Okay. Uh because I was always into kind of fast cars, loved motor racing and stuff like that, but you know, I mean, it still remained a standard held. But why did you do that? Like just to show off like the noise and everything. Look, if you can modify the silencer of a car like you can modify the the top end of a car's engine to make

it go a little quicker. I mean that's some that's the basics of of motorsport. But how were you as a child like personalitywise? Were you confident? Were you a little arrogant? No. No. I look the this is all a question of perception. Uh arrogant is also your understanding of arrogance. My understanding of arrogance. But I'll tell you one thing. H I was always self-confident and whenever I was invited to give talks at various universities and educational establishments I always told the youngsters that when they start off life they must be self-confidence because it is only

self-confidence that will bring out the best in you and I still believe that till today and because I started young I am passionate about youth empowerment but this would have not been the case always as a kid we all have like lot of insecurities it's not always confidence what was your biggest insecurity when you were growing up I don't yeah probably the biggest inse insecurity was when u the examination results with you and what my dad would have to say about But no beyond that uh you know my life is pretty plain and simple um

great bunch of school friends, great bunch of college buddies um in Kolkata. uh not the glitzy lights of Bombay and yeah so it was pretty normal but you know nothing fancy but I had a very strict set of supervisors at work who were clearly instructed by my father to be tough with me to make sure you know I worked my butt off and I'm none the happier for it that's what made me but did you did you ever get to a position or in a thinking as a child that one day I'll be powerful, one

day I'll be very rich? No, absolutely not. I mean, how could I be so presumptuous? Here I had a dad who was hands-on working 24/7 uh young uh and and uh who told me that if I didn't measure up, I'd have no place in the business. So I couldn't be presumptive could I? But your father was a wealthy man. In those times there were only few wealthy people. So you would pres presume this right? Like I will have all this wealth inherited. I'll be maybe bigger than my father or maybe just have all of these

things. I didn't have any such aspirations in those days. Uh and and you know wealth was something that was very relative. Um and and my father certainly was a very frugal spender. So uh irrespective of how much wealth he had, he certainly wasn't expensive. You said when you used to go to work, your father put strict supervisors. Mhm. Right. What would those strict supervisors made made you do? What? Well, first of all, make sure that I came to the office on time, straight after college. It wasn't as if I'd sort of roll up whenever I

wanted to. Okay. The second I was given a clear set of tasks. Um I was a salesman. I had to go and visit the shops in the market. I had to visit distributors. Um I had to uh spend time with the accounts department to understand accounting, corporate accounting. Um yeah, and marketing, you know, sit with the ad agencies and stuff like that. So it was a comprehensive training program but with no forgiveness in any sense. I had to work a full day. I couldn't sort of get up and go uh or come when I liked

which was fine. I mean um looking back it was a great grounding. What happened next? So you were in Xavier's you started going to work and then you went to states. Yeah my dad sent me off to the states to work for American H. Okay. American Herx as it was then known became then Aventus and now the pharmaceutical company the global companies called Sanopi. So yeah I was sent there uh worked there once again um as a management traininee. I then was brought to England to work in Jensen and Nicholson. I was a paint foreman

in the paint factory. used to be mixing paint at night and yeah I mean slowly I understood what my father's methods were what were his method which is basically a strict training regimen and I did pretty well because I can tell you he he expressed he expressed um his his appreciation for my work. I got a a pretty good uh report card from America. He was he said he was proud of me. Um I did well here in England mixing paint and um when I went back to India um his health was becoming indifferent even

though he at that time he was only 57 years old. His health was becoming indifferent. he had a history of heart disease. So he sort of got me to work uh for him in the core business and um yeah then of course the story of Kingfisher the story of McDonald's number one backpiper and all these brands that subsequently became very wellnown began then. How was your relationship with your father? The relationship with my father was excellent. He was a man of few words. Uh but there's one thing he did which embarrassed me no end. That

every time he saw me, he gave me a big kiss on my cheek. Whether it was at an airport or in the office or at home, he'd give me a hug and a big kiss on the cheek. I mean bless him for that. Was he did he ever doubt you that you will be able whether you will be able to continue and build his legacy or not? I think the biggest certificate I got was from my bosses in America and they gave me a pretty good certificate a pretty good report and that finally I think

gave him the confidence to say ah my son is stepping up to my expectations. What was your first bold step in your father's company? Oh, King Fisher. I went to my father and I said, "I need 10 lakhs rupees to market Kingfisher beer." He said, "That's a princely sum of money. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to do it? Etc., etc." Because I saw in the archives of United Breweries this label of King Fusha Beer, which had been actually launched in 1857, okay? gathering dust and you know with a

pretty archaic kingfisher bird on it sort of prehistoric version but I said to myself the the mere word brand kingfisher is very evocative in so many ways it could be made into a fun brand. Now my time in Kolkata going back to my training days when I spent time with them with the marketing department more importantly interacted with the people in the advertising agencies. my time in America where um you know I still remember the two big banks which is Bank of America and City Banks and City Bank said the city never sleeps and Bank

of America came out saying we caught the city napping you know that was the level of marketing advertising tongue-in-cheek stuff which caught your attention and so I became fascinated with marketing And I came away back to India started working in the business and I always said a brand needs a personality. Of course I very quickly realized in India I couldn't replicate what they did in America because for alcohol India is a media dark environment where the the advertising of alcohol is banned. So in a way I had to think of ways of authoring surrogate advertising

uh which I did pretty successfully you know not some Mickey Mouse stuff where if you want to advertise an alcoholic brand that you sort of suddenly you know produce some music cassettes and I built a full water business around Kingfisher and a bought a business of sign significant enough size uh that you could justify advertising it. Okay. And therefore you you advertise the core brand. So I gave King Fisher a very colorful personality because that's what evokes you know like Magdal number one golden moments Magdal moments it's evocative it's supposed to convey that you know

if you want to hang out and have a good time with your friend golden moments well it's the Macdonald moment. So there were many many such examples of how I actually gave brands their personalities and in many ways I supplemented by becoming the brand ambassador myself and all of this was happening when your father was still alive. Oh absolutely absolutely. You said India was media dark when it comes to alcohol which still is the reality and there was a point where I think government banned alcohol. No, no, no, no. Or what was that? Certain states

introduced prohibition such as Andhra Pradesh, unified Andhra Pradesh. Of course, Gujarat has always been dry. But the advertise advertising of alcohol is banned in India and has been banned and still is banned. When was that? When was this time when you started acquiring a lot of alcohol brands? uh because a lot of those brands were scared of the state because the state were was getting involved in the alcohol business or maybe they wanted to ban or prohibit certain things. What was this time where you started acquiring certain alcohol brands and cheap because you and your

father was bullish on it. No, that was in 1977 when Majaraji Desai was the prime minister of India and he publicly announced that there should be prohibition all India. Okay. Okay. which means that alcohol should be banned across the country. So obviously the stocks the value of the stocks and shares of almost all alcoholic beverage companies whether distilleries or breweries fell. M my father was very clear that prohibition could never succeed in India and therefore he bought and so that's how we became number one by quite a fair distance because all those who panicked and

sold out my father acquired. But was there something you guys knew which others didn't or it was just pure conviction? No, it was just pure conviction because we knew that uh prohibition had not even succeeded in the United States. And plus, if you look at the amount of revenue generation for the state governments through the sale of alcohol, there's no way in the world that prohibition would have succeeded in India. What h what happened after your father's death? You were doing this successful stint. You were taking bold steps. You wanted to make alcohol a cool

brand. All of this is happening. Everything was going right. Right. What happened then? Well, um I was in I was in the US. I gone to finalize promotion and export of Black Dog Scotch whiskey. uh when my father sadly passed away at a cocktail party in in then Bombay and he was only 59. Uh nobody ever expected him to pass so young. I was just past 27. So I took the air and death flight and flew back from New York and performed my father's last rights. Then the fun began because my father surrounded himself with

a few stalwarts. Yeah. Meaning people who he put in positions of great authority who were also very close to him personally. So he had somebody running the western India businesses, somebody running the eastern India businesses, somebody running the southern India businesses. And don't ever forget in those days the structure was that United Breweries Limited was the the holding company and the other companies in the group were largely controlled by its largest shareholder United Breweries or they were subsidiary companies. And so the inevitable debate started on what next, what role I should have. Of course, people

acknowledged that I was in the business. Uh but people I think were a little reticent to speak openly about uh their own aspirations of being the chairman. Then something very funny happened. We had uh annual general meeting of shareholders that uh was coming due. Mhm. And the shareholders in the front line who had seen me with my dad proposed my name and that's how all other aspirants were silenced because they couldn't publicly sort of get up and say that they were more qualified particularly when it was evident I had shareholder support. M and there I

was. I was installed in what I call the hot seat at a very young age. But fortunately, thanks to my upbringing, my father's insistence on proper training, familiarization with the business, time in America, time working with him. I wasn't raw. I had a fair amount under my belt to be able to address the challenge of the role. I was reading an article where u it said that you didn't trust people who was who were in control at the time of your father's uh when your father was a chairman. So that's why you hired your people

and your friends because you didn't know that if you could actually go to them for the right advice or no. No, no, no. That's completely misleading. It's false. I never hired any of my friends. But let's put it this way. They would have been too young and inexperienced. In any case, you know, I mean, as I said, I was barely 28. They would be my contemporaries. M so the question of hiring them and putting them in management positions just didn't arise but I encouraged a lot of professional from within I mean people who then became

the president of the spirits division of the breweries division and all the rest of it I mean my father's time the average age of the regional directors of the regional satrups was probably around 60 between 60 and 65 and in In five years after I reorganized, I mean the average age was about 40. Okay. And these were all professional managers promoted from within the ranks. I mean yes there were couple of exceptions where I hired people from extremely well-known organizations uh like major consultancy firms so on so forth but beyond that largely it was all

internal promotion. compare or give me differences between before okay so when your father was the chairman versus when you were the chairman give me three four differences what happened in United briefies it was the entire approach for instance mine was a decentralized accountability approach okay uh I would have monthly operating review meetings called MS for each line of business. Okay. And that's all I wanted to know about how the businesses were performing on a regular day-to-day basis. I wasn't leaning over the shoulders of the management team and trying to micromanage things. Um when opportunities came

along, uh then of course we'd had separate discussions. So if you empower people, accountability comes along with it because people are also motivated to demonstrate their own capabilities. Now my father's style was as I said far more hands-on owner operated micromanaging management style and he spent a lot of time doing it. Um I had a lot of free time. Um as I will tell you as we proceed because because of this decentralization and this whole new management culture Mhm. that I had enough time in your um introduced in in the UB group and this was

between let's say 1983 and 1986 87 that is why I was able to then acquire the Burgger paints global business based here in the UK and actually become a non-resident Indian in ' 86 88 8 Okay Yeah. And I still have a letter from the Reserve Bank of India confirming that from 1988 I would be treated as a non-resident Indian uh for tax and exchange control purposes. And the reason I and of course that obviously meant that I couldn't spend more than 180 days in India. Mhm. Well, the luxury of spending 180 days out of

India running this new opportunity in international business means business. Uh I was able to do it only because of the decentralized management structure implemented in India. So both the foreign businesses and the Indian businesses ran very well. Give me differences and similarities between Vital Malia and Vijay Malia. Well, Vital Malia's thought 100 times about spending money. Vijay Malia probably thought twice. Um yeah, you know, I guess it's age. Um it's aspiration, its age, it's different styles and outlook on life. Was there any difference in terms of public attention as well? You were pretty loud. Your

personality was I No, look, once again, you can think whatever you want to think of me and so can the whole world. Just because I'm a self-confident guy who is not afraid of public speaking who doesn't suffer from stage fright. If you want to say that I am arrogant, flamboyant, go ahead and say it. I can't deny it. My father was very shy of public speaking. Totally the opposite. I am a very confident public speaker. I used to debate in school. I used to participate in drama in school. So I can speak. So you didn't

want public recognition. You loved speaking. No. Well, if somebody asked me a question or I was invited to speak, I'd speak and people would well in some cases tell me I'm talking nonsense and in most cases say they liked my speak. But I was able to communicate from a platform. But won't you speak certain things and tweak your speeches in a way that that becomes headlines? I never looked for headlines. I never ever looked for headlines. The headlines were created around me by the media. You know, let's take the case of flamboyance. Okay? And let's

spend a minute on analyzing flamboyance. To me, flamboyance means loving life and appreciating the good things in life. That's what flamboyance is. In a public way. Okay. That is what I would say is the meaning of lambards. How old was I when my father died? 28. Compare me to other industrialists in India at that time. I was 28. I was chairman of UB group. Who was chairman of RPG enterprises? Mr. Ra Prasad. Who was the chairman of Reliance? Dhubayani. who was the uh chairman of the Brila group Mr. BK Bella I was a contemporary of

their children but I was thrown into the deep end. So I was a group chairman being compared to people who were my father's age. Now as a youngster I had the the passions of young people like I enjoyed a good car. I enjoyed my drinks. I enjoyed parties. I enjoyed music. I enjoyed sport. Not all of my father's contemporaries who suddenly became my contemporaries in business lived that way. They were more conservative, you know, more at home, more domestic, consistent with their own age. So suddenly the media decided, huh, this guy, chairman of UB group,

is flamboyant. I was flam termed flamboyant only because I did what every other youngster aspired to do. You know, I mean, at the end of the day, you have to make allowances, age related allowances. Let's put it that way. But it's okay. I have no regrets. I I didn't I didn't spend anybody else's money. I spent my own money. I lived my life the way I wanted to live my life. Uh if I look back, I've got millions of miles of corporate experience under my belt starting off at a very young age and um I

hope people appreciate the more positive contributions that I have made rather than the persistently negative narrative that has overtaken and overshadowed a effectively a whole career. I don't think I ever use that word flamboy. It was the media and the narrative they created around me that was flamboyant for their own purposes. Now I just lived like any other moderately wealthy 28 year old would live. No. Yeah. extraordinary life. How can it be extraordinary? In what way? Do you know what the exchange controls were in India? Do you know if you could import a Ferrari in

India? Today you can. But go back to the 198586. Could you import a Ferrari? No way in the world. So did you or did you not? You could only buy cars from the state trading corporation through an auction process in Delhi. But you ended up buying all of them. I could not. later you bought it. Look, I like good cars. I race cars. I've been racing cars since I was a teenager. Okay, I brought a Formula 1 car into India to race. Okay, when my father was still alive. In fact, when I won the race

at Scholabaram, okay, near then Madras, now Chennai, I called him from the racetrack and said, "I won the race." He was very happy. So it wasn't as if I was trying to do things behind people's back. But okay, I was fond of motorsports back then. Okay. So it came from media. But did you enjoy the tag of your Where did I have the time to enjoy or spend my time and energy denying? I just lived my life, did my work. And I think whoever you may ask I work really hard. See this is very okay

this is very like a media answer. Okay. U what did you were aware that people call you Flip Point. You were aware that this was the image built being built. You were aware that headline. What was your reaction? What did you start secretly? Did you enjoy it? No way. So what was the reaction the moment people would write it you like ignore it? Of course I would ignore it. What have I done for the last 9 years? But at that time you peak you let me tell you something being referred to as flamboyant some people

may take as a compliment but nobody will tolerate being called chore, thief, fugitive. Right? These are damning words. I ignored all of it because I knew I couldn't fight it much like I ignored flamboyance. I couldn't spend all my time devoted to contradicting what the media wrote. Yeah. And now but okay let me also tell you I referred to earlier I said you know this whole theme of flamboyance the media if you'd see the pattern of their reportage on me okay I mean and they kept on writing things which really I thought these guys don't

have anything better to do vija party vijay mala is hosting Newest party at King Fishella Vij Malia is doing this that and other things. Okay. Bottom line is they created a narrative of a personality that helped them to sell their own media. One day there was a terribly wrong factually incorrect uh article in one of the large newspapers in India. So I called the owner. Yes. How could you possibly publish something like this without checking the facts? Vijay, sorry. Your name sells. So they created this animal called Vijay Malia whose name started selling so they

could they could they could they could you know get more eyeballs, more readership, more viewership. But be that as it may, I lived my life. What was my objectives? I am not apologetic for the life I lived because I didn't spend anybody else's money except my own. I didn't borrow one rupee from anybody. Okay? I was much maligned, much complimented, but effectively I was my own brand ambassador. Take the case of one muchtalked about phrase, king of good times. Yeah. I'm not crazy to walk around with a label on my chest saying king of good

times read. And this is where somebody must make the effort. See the label of the king vishab beia that was developed. It says the king of good times. The personality of King Fisher Bear was the king of good times. Ulta media started calling me the king of good times. So tell me being the king of good times will not help sell the beer. But it did the because the beer itself was the genuine king of good times. And the personality that I gave King Fisher, promoting sport, promoting fashion, promoting music, sponsoring motor racing. So all

the stuff that's exciting to youngsters that represented the personality of the King Fisher brand. That's why King Fisher was such a success. But talk to me about building of King Fisher. Don't you think it was a like at least that's what I think it was a very well curated strategy that I will become a brand which represents King Fisher. No, I was brand ambassador and I have done it not only for King Fisher but take the case of our spirits business. I actually came on national television with an ad encouraging people not to drink and

drive. I did it myself. I didn't get some film star to do it. I did it myself. So bu becoming a personal brand was a strategy then. Of course it was. So then why does it bother you that you wouldn't bother me act as like the king of bothered me? But that's what I'm saying. But I am not the person who labeled myself as king of good times. You happened that the media started calling me the king of good times. Fine because subtly you c curated this. No, I didn't curate king of good times. In

what way? By actually promoting a lifestyle which every young person would aspire to. Why not? People young people are entitled to aspirations. M young people are entitled to improve lifestyles. Young people are entitled to to treat themselves. Um yeah, but that doesn't mean I went around the whole world saying, "Well, you know what? I'm the king of good times." No way. Never said it even once. But you knew it will happen. No, I didn't. How should I care? I achieved my objective of making King the number one selling beer. That's it. How did that happen?

What happened along the way is is irrelevant. Okay. How did this happen? King Fisher beer. How did it become number one? Tell me story of King Fisher. Well, when I took over this business, Golden Eagle or Mo Breweries was the largest beer company in India. Today, United Breweries Limited controls almost 52% of the beer market in India. King Fisher is is I mean not very many product categories that can can lay claim to 52% market national market share but yeah Kingfisher is by far the number one selling brand that's because yes I cured a personality

around Kingfisher around fun around excitement around vibrancy color I created the brand and I achieved my objective you take the case of of of Mcdal number one. I mean once again this whole golden moments, Mcdal moments, right? Uh it was a little more sober than the Kingfisher ads because the target demographic was different but it's the largest selling whiskey in the world today. Number one, right? All these brands I created. Tell me one turning point which just made everything good for you in King Fisher. Kingfisher beer specifically. It's a sustained effort. But what was when

was the first time you thought okay now it'll work because it was always working it as the from day one. Yeah. When I relaunched it new packaging, right? Make it more appealing on the shelf. uh started sponsoring music, fashion, events, got more brand attention. Automatically the sales started picking up and then you know as we went along promoting our marketing strategy which was clearly effective, the sales followed. Same thing with with Macdonald number one whiskey. Nothing is overnight. National brands are not built overnight. There wasn't one moment that you could point pinpoint or was it?

How can you how can you pinpoint a moment because it isn't like switching on and off a light switch. Why did you get conviction that King Bishop beer will work because it was little expensive than other ones. We had brands such as UB Royal, Flying Horse, we had Jubilee. Now you tell me even though they were my brands, does any one of these evoke any excitement in you? No. But if I say to you King Fisher, I mean you take notice, right? So that's the platform I built on. All right. Similarly, I said I mean

you take the case of of Macdonald number one, right? It was uh targeted at uh slightly higher demographic, but it went along with more sophisticated um uh merchandising and stuff like that which which which ordered well for the brand. And today as the Indian economy has grown as consumer spending power has gone up it's the world's biggest brand selling about 32 million cases per year. What was the biggest challenge in building of King Fisher bec I think or everything was just painted red and it worked out for you. No no there was nothing red about

Macdonald. It was all black and gold. Uh the only one around that's red is King Fisher. No, I think more than challenges I look at opportunities. I mean you know 2005 I bought Shawless my biggest competitor. I mean that propelled the spirits business I mean to number one position by far brought on board banks like Royal Challenge and all the rest of it. So I mean those were pretty bold business decisions which once again self-confidence. I had to pay $300 million for the company. Big amount of money but made it work. That's how United Spirits

was created today with a market cap of almost one lakh crores. So you know I mean she had the confidence to do it. You go do it. You said you bought Bojo paints at the same time. talk about that. Why paints all of a sudden you were making money with alcohol? You were minting profits out of alcohol. You were convinced that brands like King Fisher and then at one point other brands as well would work out really well, which it did. Why buying a paint business like this is so the paint British paints in India.

Okay. which is now called Burgger Paintants was part of the Hex Group. My father was chairman of British Paints India. Okay. When he passed away, I became chairman of British Paints India. During my tenure as chairman of British Paints India, I learned something about the paint business. Right. Now, what did you learn about paint business? Go back in time what I told you. When I was sent to America, then to England, I worked as a foreman in the Ber Jensen Nicholson paint factory here in this country. So I not only knew about making paint but

also how a paint business was run because I was chairman of budgets. So when Hex Group decided to sell their global budget pens, headquartered in England, operating in the Caribbean, operating in Africa, in uh Asia, the true multinational company. Uh I went to them and put together a um loan package with those days the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and bought it because I had this aspiration of creating India's first multinational that was back yeah I said 1988. Okay. So from being a Indiancentric business I was operating in 25 countries worldwide flying the Indian

flag. So your objective is only that I want to take India or Indian business to the world. No absolutely not. I I I I was was uh very focused on making a hefty profit out of it too. All right. Uh which I successfully did. So I bought it in a leverage buyout. Mhm. And after that I did IPOs. I did IPOs in Jamaica. I did IPOs on the Kenyan Stock Exchange. I did an IPO on the Singapore Stock Exchange and diluted our shareholding to 51%. But used the proceeds of the IPO to pay down the

debt, right? And then finally in 1996, I sold the entire business that was then listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange and I made a fat profit. And I still remember and I have no hesitation in saying this that I went to my mom and I said, "You see this piece of paper? This is what I earned. This is not inherited. I made it myself. So when I spend it, don't complain." And that's on a lighter end. Yeah, I mean I I I that was when as a non-resident Indian I made my first serious piece of

money out of entirely my own initiative in a pence environment. But hey, that's is what it's all about. I mean I got experience of doing IPOs in three different countries across the globe. That was in invaluable experience. Do you regret selling it? Because today BGER is I think 60 70,000 cr big business. That's only one BGER in India. I own the global BGER all over the world including India. I sold Bger paints in India to dingas. So do you regret selling? A great job with it. No, God bless them. They did a super job with

it. But it was if it was doing so good, why did you sell it then? Well, uh, it was bought by the Malaysians. Okay. And they came with an offer I couldn't refuse. I mean, okay. They offered me some two and a half times the quoted shapers. Okay. You mentioned that you said you told your mother that I made this profit. Now don't complain when I spend it. Correct. Tell me about relationship with your mother. My mom brought me up. I used to live with her in Kolkata alone since ' 64 65 and yeah so

she's stood by me like a rock she's a very well educated lady um and yeah I mean she's been living in England now for 30 plus years but yeah I mean you know I mean I wanted to buy a yacht I wanted to buy a plane and stuff like like that. And so I wanted to make sure I set the record straight. I told my mom I earned this money. So if I spend it buying a yacht and spend it buying a plane, don't complain. Did she complain? Oh, no. Never. But why did you say

that? She enjoyed the art. What? Okay. Why did you say this to her then? Was she like frugal? She would ask you not to spend. No, it isn't that. I mean it's natural for a parent you know if you see something that's quite extraordinary quite expensive lavish call it what you may it's normal parental reaction to ask the child you know why you spending money or whatever so I mean I'm just telling you I made a joke out of it but I was very proud that that was money I earned you know it wasn't money

I inherited it. Tell me one lesson you learned from your mom. Oh, I've learned many lessons from my mom. Don't waste time and life arguing. It's not worth it. Use your time productively. Think positively. Don't keep arguing with people unless it's a matter that's going to get you somewhere. And which argument gets you anywhere. And what did you learn from your father? Give me one lesson. Something that you can't forget. Hard work and an ability to read a balance sheet. Company balance sheet. He was really good at it. Right. That's what it's written about him.

Super little at it. Do you miss your I don't think I'd be I'd be as good but I think whatever I learned from him was good enough for me to produce some excellent robust balance sheets in all the companies I ran. Do you miss him? Well, who doesn't miss a dad? But you know it's now what 1983 to 2025 is a long time. What do you miss about him? You can't keep missing somebody for 40 years. Life is too short for that. But do you think he would have been proud of you today? Well, I

would hope so. Certainly not proud of me being called chore or and certainly nobody would be proud of that. Certainly no parent. I know my mother gets very agitated even today. She's 98 years old and every time she sees the Indian media, she's reduced to tears. Obviously, it hurts her more. I'm probably more thick skinned, more robust and I just ignore it. But, you know, at that age, my mother doesn't and it's very unfair what has been written, what has been alleged because it's complete nonsense. Let's walk through the case. Let's start from the point

of what happened in Kingfisher Airlines. Okay. When did you decide that you want to start a kingfisher a 2002 2003 and you just Okay. So here's a story. Hear me out. What I've gathered from reading about it is one day out of blue you go to an AGM or like just a board meeting I think not AGM it was a board meeting where you announced that on my son's birthday we are going to launch Kingfisher Airlines your CFO was not happy about it but you still pursued and you want to do it this was the

this is what is reported What was the reality? Tell me the truth. The truth is that Damana brothers from Bombay. Mhm. Who previously had Damana Airlines M came and made a presentation to my CFO Ravin Aruni saying the time is ripe to start an airline now. Okay. Ravender had discussions with them came to me and said would you like to look at this proposal? I said yes. We looked at it and finally we decided yes it is opportune so let's go for it. Okay. That's how the idea of an airline was bomb and then you

didn't take anyone in confidence. You were just hey out of nowhere I think we are alcohol business now we want an airline business. No there's nothing wrong in diversification. The UB group has had a history even during my father's time of operating food processing companies. petrochemical companies, electromechanical companies. So I mean diversity was nothing new to us. So your initial plan to launch an airline was 7th May 2005 but you ended up launching on 9th May 2005 right and then this whole business of launch on son's birthday as a birthday gift and all is complete

baloney. All right. I think my son would be embarrassed and I would be equally embarrassed to say I'm starting an airline. All right. As an 18th birthday gift. Complete nonsense. All right. But okay. Once again, media narratives are best ignored. A fullblown professional management team was in position before the airline even started before the first plane arrived. Okay. The CEO and the director of engineering were both hired from the US. Okay. And the airline was launched. There's a lot of narrative about Kingfish Airlines. There's a lot of narrative about mismanagement. A lot of narrative about

the Dean acquisition. All sorts of things. Let's pick one by one. What was the first vision of King Visher Airlines when you were starting in 2005? To produce the best flying experience that India had ever seen. Make it a premium experience. totally a premium experience number one terms of passenger comfort, safety, number two to connect places in India that had never ever been connected before and that it was a really serious part of the growing infrastructural needs of the country. Hm. But I was watching one documentary about you and I think the person who you

got to lead was Alex. Yeah. Will Cox. Yeah. So Alex said that you convinced him that you want to build a lowc cost carrier but it was not like that. And in your own words, if you're giving a vision that I want to build a premium experience, why did you get a CEO or like a president, I don't know what was his position, but somebody to lead by telling him that you want to build a lowc cost carrier. That is your own misinformation. He said it somewhere. I'm not I'm just quoting him. Fair enough. I

haven't seen it, but I'll respond. Kingfisher Airlines started off as a singleass airline, low cost but with a difference. It had inflight entertainment and it offered meals. Everything else that's applicable to a lowcost airline was applied to King Fisher as well. commonality of fleet, commonality of training, the whole lot. I mean there's a whole set of rules. What is a lowcost carrier? What is a full service carrier? Right? And that even descends down to intricacies such as the type of reservation system, flight planning system you use and all the rest of it. So Kingfisher had

all the lowcost attributes. Okay. The only product plus was inflight entertainment for the first time ever in India and good food. So to me the logic from my marketing experience was Indians love entertainment therefore the inflight entertainment system and Indians love food. M so good food right and then of course okay service quality whether whether you're a low cost or a full service I mean you'd like a nice well trained polite set of crew and we spent a lot of time and energy on that then when we saw the market evolve we added king fisher

first which is basically the business class. Why? Because the market demanded that on certain routes, right? There's certain people who would not fly King Fisher because we didn't have a front cabin or a business class who would always fly jet. Okay? Because Jet had two class, business class and economy class, right? And now just to prove my point, Indigo is often referred to as the most successful lowcost carrier in the world and certainly the largest lowc cost carrier in India. What's Indigo doing now? Installing a business class. Right. Yeah. So it's not such a dumb

idea. Right. So it worked in your favor initially. Yes. So by and by 2008 you were the biggest airline in the country having a 27% market share. Yes. Right. What went wrong? If things were right, your marketing was working, you had everything right. In fact before even you answer that I want to go to which is often talked about is your training of cabin crew. What was the idea behind that? you selected certain people based on how they look or how they're going to be presented. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, at the end of

the day, you have you have very good-looking ladies who sadly can't speak very well. Now, what is one of the key attributes of a cabin crew? Communication. I mean you may look good but if you can't communicate with the passenger that doesn't serve the purpose the kind of service standards that I set for the airline and my service standards were unique they included in business class the aeroses cleaning the reading glasses and spectacles of our customers. We call them guests, right? So there were little things that made a vast difference in the customer experience. Tell

me two more thing. Two, two, three more things. This is one. Okay. Secondly, the food was second to none. Right. I mean the quality of the seats themselves, the recline and all the rest of it, what they call the seat pitch, it's second to none. So there was so many little attributes. We called customers not passengers but guests. Many airlines have copied us since but they were the little little things that made a difference. I was very focused on the service delivery excellence of King Krishna. You can go further because you don't know this. You

can't ask me the question. So let me tell you. Yeah. In the first one year, the airport manager at every single airport in India had to send me on my personal mobile and SMS the flight number, the schedule time of departure and the actual departure time. So every night before I went to bed which was rather late I used to look at my phone every single flight of King Fisher of that day I used to monitor personally the on-time performance. You were so detailed focused. You were so because the the service industry in the airline

industry requires focus requires detailed focus. So agreed then it worked in your favor till 2008. What happened then? Simple. You ever heard of Lemon Brothers? Yeah. You ever heard of the global financial crisis, right? Did it not impact India? Of course it did. The whole aviation sector was forget aviation. Every sector every sector was. Yeah. The money stopped. It got dry. The value of the Indian rupee. So I went to Shri Pranab Mukhuji then finance minister of India having grown up in Kolkata. I speak fairly decent Bengali and I said I'm a problem king Airlines

downsize which means I have to downsize this a cut number of aircraft. I have to lay off employees. M right because I can't afford to operate under these depressed economic circumstances. He said no at this time connectivity is important. Yeah. The jobs and employment are important particularly because you know typically in an airline they're not blue collar workers. Huh? M these are not like work men. Yeah. And the the boys and girls who work in an airline can't be classified as blue collar. And he said I don't want them to lose their jobs. So you

continue banks will support you. That is how it all started. I was told not to downsize King Fisher at that time and yes the banks did support. All right. Now what happened then? Lot of well you tell me the narrative. I'll tell you the truth. You tell me the narrative. Then there was a consortium formed of 17 banks and the loan was given to you via SBI right? Was that the first or IDBI was first? See this is where people are not aware. I acquired Eden which everybody says was a big mistake. Yeah. What? In

$137 million or something like that. Everybody says you overpaid for it. In the world of business, there's something known as consolidation, industry consolidation. There is something known as eliminate the disruptor. Okay. Eden was famous for advertising and promoting one rupee tickets. Yeah. Clearly you could never ever sustain any airline business selling tickets for one rupee. Right. Okay. It was a bait. H but that set certain price expectations in the mindset of the customers. Yeah. and affected not only Decker which was losing money but the industry as a whole of which King Fisher was also a

part. Right? So at that time we looked at it was also Bangalore based. It had the same Airbus aircraft. It had the same train pilots as King Fisher. So there was a lot of engineering compatibility plus scale and size with a merger of Kingfisher and Deka eliminate the disruptor and consolidate the industry and Kingfisher Airlines. That was the logic of buying Dean, not this much touted logic of I was desperate to fly overseas. I needed to get past that 5-year hurdle. Complete nonsense. Now, why should I shout from the rooftops trying to trying to clarify

this? But if you talk to anybody about elimination of a disruptor and consolidation of industry, it'll start make and commonality of equipment, it'll start making business sense. But if your philosophy was to make a premium airline, why would you buy something which stands for lowc cost carrier, which stands for something cheap, which stands for one rupee ticket? Because the customers would be completely different. The only obvious sense which anybody could make it out from it was if you are going for a different vision you are probably going out because the 5year window which you wanted

uh which you wanted to bounce right probably yeah of course like that was the logic like I to clarify to tell people who don't know about it the logic that people talk about is if an Indian airline wanted to fly overseas they should have operated in India for at least 5 years before getting the license to operate air and you didn't have that and that's why you bought air deck in so that you could start flying overseas and you paid an absurd amount of price for it that's what people say so who is the people

that you're quoting everybody like all the things that I've read all the all the media like media right yeah like the legacy media right the legacy media the people who are responsible for giving us the information I mean that's what as a citizen that's where I get my information from correct and at least from the ones who I really respect. So I don't think anybody at UB group was that dumb with a lack of business understanding to buy an airline, an operating airline just to be able to fly overseas. I'm telling you the logic was

consolidation of the industry given the commonality of equipment. I referred a little earlier to the installation of a front cabin or business class which we called king first which Indigo are doing even now. There are certain routes in India that demand right a front cabin where there are people who will only fly business class fair but the bulk of India people want a single class product Dean fitted that bill fantastically right we opened up more routes than had ever been opened before or available for air connectivity That was one of the biggest contributions we made

to the Indian aviation sector and economy. Right. Dean also played a part in that. So, Kingfisher's sad failure subsequently had nothing to do with Dean. Okay. Nothing to do with how much we paid for Dean. Right. Got it. Those were totally separate set of reasons. Right. But business reasons. Here's a question on it. So I get the idea that you wanted to service more routes. You wanted to consolidate. That was a business decision. You saw that hey I want to build a premium airline but there's a bulk of India who cares about the price and

you wanted to contribute to make sure that I want to make sure that India gets to fly anywhere and everywhere through the price point which air deckin provides and if I could be the one to consolidate it and I could be the one to actually eliminate the disruptor I should do it. Business decision brilliant. Do you think then the wrong decision was to rebrand it to King Fisher Red? Because you can't start operating one Deckan and one King Fisher. So we just called it King Fisher Red. I mean rebranding is is is common in the

world. Take Coca-Cola, right? There's Coke, there's Coke Zero, there's Diet Coke. It's all Coke, right? So a multibrand strategy is no rocket science. Yeah. But then the philosophy of air decken was low cost and in kingfisher red. So kingfisher stood for premium. Kingfisher red stood for low cost. It was differentiated king fisher first and king fisher red. Okay. Right. You tell me something. What's the difference between coke zero and dad coke? Tell me. Just two names I don't know. Yeah fine. What's the philosophy behind it? You don't know. So how can all these commentators be

commenting on king pusher first and king pusher red? You know the the trouble in India is that there are too many commentators who don't understand the facts and of course the media plays to the gallery and that's how disinformation gets spread wide and then you stated somewhere again the commentators I'm quoting that I want to if I've put in a name king fisher on an airline no matter even if it's low cost I want to provide all the services you started providing all the services you started providing catering you started providing everything in a lowc

cost carrier didn't you I began by saying that king fisher started off with all the attributes of a lowc cost carrier which is single class standard fleet etc etc etc but I said the only differentiator was inflight entertainment and food [Music] I mean just because I gave food didn't make it a full service carrier. I mean you want shall I give you examples? Yeah. You go on any lowc cost carrier here in Europe. All right. Do they starve you or do they feed you? But you have to pay for it. No. All of them. I

don't know. A few of them. The ones I Okay. So there are exceptions. Okay. But that was the business like that's what everybody talks about, right? You know that's the problem. Lack of information and knowledge and more importantly no domain knowledge of the aviation industry leads to all sorts of speculation that makes no sense. So you tell us that does it make business sense to provide food and inflight entertainment in a lowc cost carrier where people don't care about it. Wait, our belief was Indians love food and love entertainment. That was for King Fisher first,

but not for Kingfisher Red. King Fisher Red stands for low. An inflight entertainment system doesn't cost you money to operate every day but still cost you a lot of money which eventually will bleed your balance sheet. Really? I'm asking you. Not in our opinion. Do you think that was the wrong decision? What? which is provided. Yeah. After acquiring deck giving all the services of a full full service carrier in a lowc cost carrier the flow the the full service carrier part of it was very distinct from the so-called lowcost carrier. Uh at the end of

the day, however you may refer to these business models. Mhm. Uh it's all about the price your customers are willing to pay and whether you can fill your plans. Simple. So all models are academic and theoretical that really are irrelevant. But your critiques say that you were competing against other lowc cost carriers like like at that time was it I think Indigo started at that time and Spice started at that time. I think Spice Spice was there on and off. Yeah. But more often than not, so you were competing with lowc cost carriers with their

pricing, but you were providing something extra and that's why your business model was bleeding more money than them and you expected that this will turn into loyal customers. But the moment you increase price, people would not fly your CL your flights. Was it was it true? That's what the critics say. They are all aviation experts. I have nothing to say. So where was the problem then? If this was not the problem, then what happened? The problem was the government. The problem was fairly and squarely the government. And I, you know, they've made a lot of

political hay out of this. When I used to write to Prime Minister Manm Singh, uh when I used to write uh to to to the civil aviation ministers, ministers of finance, the cost of crude, international crude went to $140 a barrel. The price of aviation turbine fuel in India was directly related to the cost of international crude oil. So you can see that from an average of about $60 a barrel, crude oil went to $140 a barrel with the resultant and equivalent increase in the price of aviation turbine fuel. M the state governments levied and

ad valorum sales tax on aviation turbine fuel. So you can yourself now begin to imagine the financial impact on the airline operating where fuel costs are the single largest component of cost. So I pleaded I said look please give aviation termine fuel declared good status so that it attracts central sales tax and not this punitive advalorum state sales tax right because the states are making windfall profits anyway that the government did not do okay aviation is regarded as a capital intensive industry, right? It's acknowledged as such worldwide, right? They would not permit foreign investment. It

was sad that only 6 months after King Airlines shut, right, that they permitted Ajiad to invest in jet. I had already reached agreement with the CEO of Edihad in Geneva for them to invest in King Fisher which government did not permit. So we could not capitalize the airline through a foreign investor either. Why didn't they allow? They should ask government. Right? So my point is the economy, the circumstances, the government policy then existing all conspired to create a perfect storm through which King Fisher could not survive. I mean that's a sad part of it. If

you talk about Kingfisher the concept and UB group's diversification into aviation, I'll answer it in one sentence. The two biggest orders for aircraft in the world today are Air India and Indigo, both Indian carriers. The fastest growing aviation market in the world today is India. Now if you yourself acknowledge that in 2008 Kingfisher was the largest airline with a 27% market share. Had events not conspired against us. Right? You can imagine where King Fer could potentially have been today. But sadly not all businesses work out. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. While this like 2008

turmoil happened and you had your own challenges with King Fisher, but there were good things in your life which are happening as well. Mhm. One of them being sports. So you you bought IPL team RCB Royal Challenges Bangalore. How did that happen? When did this idea come to you? Were you approached? You approached what was it? Tell me everything about it. Well, I think I've already explained to you the concept behind building a personality for a brand. Mhm. About communicating um marketing u ethos via sporting events, via music events um and various other forms that

would be attractive to youngsters. I had just acquired Shawless and one of the biggest brands that I acquired was Royal Challenge Whiskey and I was thinking of ways and means of now taking Royal Challenge whiskey to the next level which required a lot of marketing innovation thinking and at the time the IPL was conceived I was actually sitting on the um BCCI committee as a representative of the Karnataka State Cricket Association and I was very impressed with the pitch that Lalit Modi made to the BCCI committee about this league. Mhm. And of course uh he

was working through um jumping through the hoops. BCCI was quite bureaucratic at that time. But nevertheless, he called me one day and said, "Okay, fine. We're ready to go. Teams are going to be auctioned. Are you going to buy?" And I thought to myself, I said, "Wow, in a country where cricket is a religion, what better platform can I have to promote my brands than through an IPL franchise?" And I got greedy. I wanted one for King Fisher. M and one for Royal Challenge, my whiskey brand. Okay. He said, "No, you cannot possibly have two.

You can only have one." Anyway, bidding time came and I think I was pretty excited about having an IPL team to promote one of my brands. And so I bid for three franchises. Okay. I lost Mumbai by a very small amount of money. But then that's not surprising that Aman's got it. But anyway, I wound up being the highest bidder for three and I had to choose one. So I obviously chose Bangalore and it then was natural that it would be Royal Challengers Bangalore because the whiskey was Royal Challenge and that's how RCB was born.

But it was not a business it was not for the love of cricket. It was more like a business decision that it will help my brands or was it both? This is it. The media narrative will be well vanity project. Vijay Mala loves cricket. He wanted to buy his own team. Yeah. Flamboyance. The usual narrative about me. But the sole purpose always was promotion of the Royal Challenge whiskey brand. So it was very much businessdriven and that's why it was called Royal Challengers. But did it help after that? The whiskey sales went up massively. massively

and of course quite apart from it doing its job to promote the whiskey brand the IPL franchise model itself as explained in great detail by Lalith um and which is true now is that the revenues the media revenues is so high the payment of the franchise fee over 10 years is over so now there's a significant net profit for every franchisee It's like a very profitable running independent business. So, so much so for it being a vanity project. How much did you buy it for? I think $112 million is what I bid. And that time

it would be like 6 700 crores or more than Yeah, I think but but Lit was clever. He everything was denominated in dollars. The bid price was okay. I think 112 million which of course people boked at at that time but you know in hindsight if you look at it and do the math it was a top class investment. I mean look at what the teams are worth today. Yeah. I mean there was a billion dollars. You know one thing which was exciting in your pitch in your bid for RCB was Virat Kohli. Virat Kohli

under 19 you bid for him and you if I'm not wrong you got it for like 20 lakh something correct why did you pick Virat at such a young age well you know obviously there was the young creditors and it was draw by lots right and finally I got lucky so I got to pick and I immediately went for Vart you know, I mean, I looked just I think shortly before the actual um selection process there, they were playing the under9 World Cup and I was very impressed and so I picked him and you know

it's wonderful 18 years later he's still there. They were just his performance or were you going to see something? Yeah, he was a young kid at that time when I got him. But you know, full of energy, great talent and you know, one of the greatest Indian cricketers ever. If you had the choice to pick two or three players from other teams for RCB today, who would you pick? If dreams could come true, just brea. Yeah. if dreams could come true. Uh Surya Kumar Yadav Visha Pant Rahul if I had these four I wouldn't need

anybody else and definitely win the trophy. And do you think this year even when you don't have these four you would the RCB line trophy this year the RCB lineup is pretty balanced um top class batting lineup uh a much improved bowling lineup um I haven't seen Bhuvar Kumar play in RCB colors yet but you know he's a top class bowler um but as a unit I can say it's a pretty balanced unit and now it all depends on onfield performance. You know this year the captain Rajat he's from my city he's from my neighborhood.

Oh like like he was literally like two houses away from my house Rajat Partidar. So this year even though I'm not I support Mumbai but this year I'm still voting for RCB and I'm like okay let let Rajett win the trophy. Okay. But it you know it occurs to me that RCB never winning the cup has actually worked in the RCB favor. Do you think so? In what way? In cult following. No. Even though you guys have like the RCB has never won. You see that is because the day RCB was conceived we have had

a comprehensive program of fan engagement. Okay. Right. We've had event I mean the the the IPL window is 2 months but we have had activation program stretching over all 12 months. Keep the RCB fans engaged. So it is once again a a three-cut marketing strategy and fan engagement strategy which has worked. That's why we have such extreme loyalty that win or lose the chant of RCB is always there. Give me an example of the marketing trick here. So many I mean you you watch the activations of RCB longevity right? You remember LA? Yeah. Remember? Yeah.

Lao. When was this conceived? You don't know. Well, let me tell you. 1996 World Cup of crickets. The Kingfisher West Indies cricket team. Now back in 1996 I put the Kingfisher logo on the West Indies not Indian cricket team. Okay. And because why? The personalities of the West Indian cricketers fun dancing music their entire swagger that suited the Kingfisher brand. That was when the jingle was conceived which lives on till today. It's 2025. Yeah. Wow. It was conceived before I was born and I still remember it. So you see you have been king of marketing.

You have done so many marketing cakes, right? Was the Formula 1 also a marketing stint for King Fisher? See, I told you earlier that I've always had racing in my blood. I've always loved racing cars. I was then involved with the motorsports clubs in India. I was chairman of the federation of motorsports clubs of India uh for many years and the job of the federation was basically to promote motorsports in India. Now for anybody who is into motor racing the absolute pinnacle of motorsport in the world is Formula 1. right now. What is Formula 1

all around? The image of Formula 1, big box, glamour, uh, seriously competitive racing divided by hundreds of a second, full of excitement, etc., etc., etc. All the attributes I have employed in different ways for my brands and plus being a motor racing enthusiast, right? It was a dream to have a team on the F1 grid. So when the opportunity presented itself, I did it right. I did it. Now I named it Force India. I could have easily named it Malaya Formula 1 like Williams Formula 1 for instance, right? But why did you keep Force One?

because I wanted the Indian flag to be on the grid. I wanted the world to know that the team with roots in India of all countries was at the pinnacle of motorsport and that is why I called it force India and I had the triricolor on the car. Of course I also use the platform to advertise my brands. Yeah. Okay. including Royal Challenge Whiskey, White and Mai which we owned at that time, King Fisher, then the airline. So the car, deliver the delivery of the car and all the merchandise around Formula 1 had a lot

of our brands on it for promotional purposes. But the core reason was to put an Indian Formula 1 team on the grid. But you invested quite a money quite a lot of money on it, right? Sure, I did. I mean, Formula 1's not cheap. Do you think that was bad decision? No. In hindsight, I wouldn't do anything different. Why not? Because why not? Because you had to sell it, right? And I think a lot of accusations are for the same brand. Whose accusations about what? That you use King Fisher money for Formula 1 and nobody

talks about it. Nobody talks about that. Have you spoken about it before and still people do? I've never Why should I? As I told you, I don't want to waste my time correcting the barrage of narratives coming from Legacy Media. But then you sold Force One. Yes. Force One became Racing Point. Yes. You sold it to Lawrence. Aston Martin Formula 1. Yeah. Why did you sell it to Lawrence? Well, I had to at that time because of my worldwide freezing orders and the troubles that Sahara was going through and so on and so forth. So

you know at the end of the day I would have definitely kept it but it was not to be. So fine you you move on in life but I had 10 years of the Indian flag on the Formula 1 grid. Talking about another marketing stint because there was cricket, there was Formula 1, there was Kingfisher calendar. It was so highly talked about. What was the story behind Kingfisher calendar? Atul Kazbaker came to me and said fine let's you know there's a Pirelli calendar um why can't we create a similar property for kingfisher absolutely and so

we said fine we'll have the kingfisher swimsuit calendar uh we couldn't go sort of kind of all the way that Felli might have been able to given the social considerations in India and so on so forth but I think um we we we we produced a product that everybody demanded. I mean even today I get SMSes from people where's my calendar. Um so it was highly sought after uh and once again we we had events around it. We had the national uh hunt for the king fisher girl and that was national. So we broad-based it

and we chose models through a national hunt and then of course we'd have events uh around the calendar shooting the calendar and then launching the calendar all of which was consistent with the brand positioning and marketing strategy of Kingfisher. And why do you think that girls who were who became or who landed on the calendar their career skyrocketed? Well, because we chose the right girls. I mean whether it was Deepika Pardon, whether it was Katrina KF, I mean we we had all the the the heroins and the the uh the stars uh on the calendar

in their younger days. But they were not stars back then. They became after. We picked Well, we picked the right talent. Did you also help them after the calendar or it was just the engagement was only? I came with the calendar and that was it. I did it because it was a fantastic marketing tool. Didn't bring anything to me personally, but it did wonders for the brand. The same thing with the Mcdal marketing campaigns. Right. Okay. Talking about fast cars, I've always been passionate about cars, right? And I have owned good cars, but not a

fleet of them. In India, I had a couple of Mercedes cars, one Rolls-Royce, and one Mayback. That was it. That was all I possessed. But you have one of the largest car collections of vintage cars and stuff, right? We're talking we're talking talking about vintage cars, which is a totally different ball game because of our nationwide presence on the ground. I told my people, "Look for vintage cars because they were hugely neglected. Many many cars went to India in the 20s and 30s. The Maharajas in India were probably the biggest customers for famous cars such

as Rolls-Royce. But these cars were in a state of ruin. Given my inherent interest in cars, I said I want to collect these and restore them, which I did. I mean in those days I have bought a Rolls-Royce for 50,000 rupees with a tree growing through it in somebody's backyard deep in Talangalana. I have bought cars that have been rusted, parts missing, etc., etc., etc., all of which I lovingly restored over a period of time. That is my passion for cars and those cars still exist. Of course you you can't export them because that's a

government of India policy. So they are in India. Tell me tell me about the top three cars which you absolutely loved out of your collection from the vintage cars back then which you owned maybe in England or in India or anywhere. Yeah. No, in in in India, I had uh I think a 1931 PS arrow, which is a fantastic American car uh and which I took to Singapore. I entered a Singapore to Malaysia rally and won it and very proudly flew back on an Air India flight with a big trophy in my hand. That was

one of my favorite cars. I um have a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost that was supposedly owned by the Nisam of Hyderabad with a very unique body on it. Uh that's a special car. I um have I think a 1903 Darak which looks more like a horsedrawn garage. It's French with a single cylinder engine still runs. So yeah, these were some of the unique ones which u were personal favorites. Let's put it that way. What's the most ridiculously expensive thing you have bought in your life? It depends what I mean. You're talking about a car, you're talking

about painting, you're talking about property. Give me example of one each. No, I mean look uh I have a family trust set up by my father that you know uh has acquired various properties in different parts of the world. The media said I had over 20 properties probably one in each country I went to which is once again hugely erroneous exaggeration. Yeah, sure. I have properties in England, properties in America where my kids live. I had a lovely property in France, which you rightly pointed out uh owned through Gizmo, which is a holding company. Uh

yeah. And then when I had uh the big brewery business in South Africa, we had a home in Cape Town which was sold when the business was sold because I had no reason to keep going there. That's about it. And you talk about one of your houses which was very spoken about actually two of them. Yeah. One is that big bungalow which is above which is in India at the King Fisher Tower. Bangalore Bangalore. started it started off as a joke. Okay. What story behind it? The brewery house which is the bungalow was on that

piece of land for over 100 years. That's where I grew up in that bungalow. That's where my father lived. And so when these developers came and asked me that that land should be developed and that it would be very beneficial for the company and that there was a huge profit potential. I said, you know, I should put the company first and unlock the value and the potential rather than be uh selfish and say no, I'm not moving. So in a joking way, I said to Van Razak of prestige, very dear friend of mine, top man.

I said by if you lift this building and put it on top of the tower you want to build I'll agree. He says okay that's what we'll deliver that's what they did. Wow. What what is there in inside the house? I always wonder every time I go to Bangalore. It's unfinished. It's unfinished because it's embroiled in this UBL liquidation controversy right now. But you know given that the the banks are settled and I think UBHL should come out of liquidation and be restored to its shareholders which is what I'm working on now. Was this also

a reason why because you marketed so well and you marketed at the place or with the tools which were very very public in nature very loud in nature. There was a line which I read in a newspaper which said you were a show you are a showman and your father was a businessman. Is that is that why people misunderstand you because of the nature of your My father was a businessman and I really am not concerned about being referred to as a showman because the showman created the world's largest alcoholic beverage company which my father

as a businessman would have loved to see. Do you think your father if he was here with you things would have been different for you? You would not land in this? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean if you see what I've been through, it's illogical. It is a sustained campaign and a sustained attack on the government's favorite poster boy. Right now whether my dad was around or not would not change anything what has been attempted and what has been done till now the government officially recognizing and admitting that 14,100 crores has been recovered. Okay. Let's

go to a point where when we were talking about earlier about the kingfisher turmoil you said you went to the FM back then. Mhm. which was Pranav Mukharji sir. What happened after that meeting? He said that banks will support you. Is that the reason why a government bank supported you? It was not one government bank. It was a group of about 15 or 16 government banks. Kingfisher Airlines never borrowed any money from State Bank of India. Just to set the record straight. Okay. State Bank of India was a lender to Dean. When King Fisher and

Dean merged, State Bank of India became a lender to King Fisher Alliance. But it started with Dean. So like that there were a group of banks from whom King Fisher had borrowed money. A group of banks from whom Dean had borrowed money and then they got combined into one entity when Dean and King Fisher merged. Right. Yes. There were times when the the the sort of support from the finance minister at that time meant that you know when I presented to various banks including state bank that you know the airline needed money they would recognize

um uh our financial needs appraise them correctly through state bank of India capital markets and then sanction loans even though the creditworthiness uh of Kingpisher Airlines may have been short of norms. To that extent, I'm grateful. Yes. But then, you know, I did my bit as well. I put in 3,000 crores of UB group's money into King Fisher Allies. You're talking to me about allegations of siphoning. You're talking to me about allegations of misusing Kingfisher Airlines funds from my lifestyle for Formula 1. Nobody ever talks about that 3,000 crores I infused in cash into King

Fisher Airlines to keep it afloat. my good friend and uh you know probably the most successful lady entrepreneur I've known she's like a sister to me Kiran Mazumar has often said publicly that Vijay put everything on the line for king I did but that's not appreciated that is not appreciated that's sad but let the narrative be what it is see you put everything you had into reviving King Fisher Airlines because you believed in the vision. Mhm. Right. But at the time when you asked loans uh the company was not doing that great. Correct. Right. So

you but you still got loan from the consortium of 17 banks. Correct. The reason was they believed in your vision or the reason that they were influenced by the by the government to give you the loan. Yeah. They believed in the vision. They did their own appraisals. Right. And please never forget I gave my personal guarantee and United Breweries Holdings Limited also gave its personal guarantee. If anybody had okay bad intentions, if anybody had intentions to divert money, siphon money, steal money, could anybody put themselves on a line with a personal guarantee? Think about it.

So all this narrative of chore that is why I say in the last 9 years I haven't bothered about changing this narrative because it is what it is. It's written by the Indian media of course prompted by the government who have had their own press conferences etc. I mean Samit Patra, the BJP spokesman called a press conference and bandied around in front of the Indian media letters that I had written to Prime Minister Manuan Singh trying to establish a nexus right between me and the prime minister and alleging some sort of wrongdoing by the then

Congress um prime minister. I mean one could see through the political rhetoric straight away. Why wouldn't any Indian citizen write to the prime minister for help? Fair because I never asked for money. I asked only for policy changes. Let's go to the series of events after this. What happened? What happened? So I'm quoting just pure research. Okay. Of quoting whom? quoting pure research of what's out there on all the newspapers. So you got a loan from banks and usually the normal nature of providing such big loans is people take people give you this kind of

loan against collateral and in this case bank took brand name of king fisher as collateral and gave you the loan. One of the collaterals. One of the collateral. What were the other collaterals? Several other stocks, shares, property. So stocks and shares, shares, property and stock and shares which is again quoted at that time were at the price of 3839 but banks got it at 68.69. You talk about Kingfisher Alliance shares. Yeah. What about all the other shares of UBL and USL? Nobody talks about that. But they where do you think they got this 14,000 crores

from? I'm talking about back then like one minute they have sold assets and realized 14,100 crores. Yeah. Large part of which were my shares. So you have only focused on brand value. You've forgotten about the shares. No, I'm suggested wait a minute. I never suggested that the brand value would generate 14,000 crores. my shares that were pledged. So there's your answer to all this narrative. So you're saying that I'm not saying it's fact. No. So the the facts are what you are quoting is they took shares of King Visher Airlines at the double price because

they were also getting shares of UB. Mhm. That's why there was some kind of negotiation which was played on. No, no. It is a multiple basket of securities. But still, why would a bank twice the share price? Look, nobody dreams up a share value. Okay, they were professional merchant bankers including State Bank of India, capital markets involved. They arrived at a share value. The part of the loan package was that King Fisher's shares in the airline itself needed to be pledged to the banks. But that was all not the only pledge. It was part of

a basket. But then the media chose to focus only on that. So I would like to ask the legacy media where did the 14,000 crores come from? But you made such a halaboo about share price of Kingfisher Airlines. Now you see, now do you see how people pick and choose to discredit you? Isn't it pretty evident? Okay. So then this happened again. A business decision by banks. They did everything. There was no influence involved. It was pure play business decision by a bank between you and the banks. You should ask them this question. You lent

the money on what basis you lend the money they should answer the question I'm the receiver first of all and let me clarify here when you keep saying you borrowed I never borrowed one na pisa vijay mallaya has never borrowed a single rupee from anybody ever it was king fisher airlines the running company that borrowed I was a guarantor there's a big difference and then the money came in but you still Kingfish Airlines was still bleeding whatever the case may be I also put 3,000 crores you put in 3,000 crores you put in everything and

you tried to revive it and then one series of event happened where there was a non-payment of the oil bills and that's why the oil companies as started asking you for advanced money and that shaked you a little bit more yeah the working capital cycle got disrupted. M natural. Then there was another series of event that Kingfisher Airlines was not able to pay the airport fees, the landing charges. Listen, when a company goes through a cash flow issue, it affects everybody. Yeah. You cannot isolate one particular creditor or vendor. No. So I'm coming if there's

a cash shortage. Okay. It's across the board. H so across the board then there were catering companies which were affected there was no food everybody after one by one one by one there was non-payment of certain things cash flow issue did you at any point did you think that this not going to work you were still pushing you still push I was pushing I was pushing in the hope that the foreign investment that I had already negotiated was going to fractify which I had already agreed right with James Hogan. But the permission never came. It

was sad and I guess my misfortune that 6 months after King Fisher collapsed in October 2012 that the same Ethi was granted permission to invest in Jedways. Okay. Then another thing happened. Okay. So you were expecting all of this would happen. You asked your people, your staff, your employees to wait. Mhm. That the money will come in. Yeah. But they were not paid. The staff was not paid. Sadly, no. Right. Mhm. But there's again a statement that your international employees were getting paid. Indian employees were not. Mhm. And the reason is that because internationally you

would have held accountable in India, you could get away with anything. Was that the reason? I didn't know that. But why were you paying international employees and not yours? It's very simple. The money was available through ticket collections in England. Because money was available, staff salaries were paid. In India, the High Court of Karnataka had frozen over 260 crores worth of cash. Okay. Now, I'd like to focus on this non-payment of salaries. There has been a hell of a lot spoken about it. All right. Which has pained me no end. It has seriously pained me

in my track record as chairman of UB group. I would ask anyone to check on how I cared for my employees. I was proud of the care that I gave to my employees. Why would it be different for King Fisher employees? The company in India had no money. There was UB's money of 260 crores in the bank with the sorry with the bank under the control of the government of Karnataka. We applied officially and formally to the IC court please release the sal money to pay the salaries. Court said no. Why? The same banks objected.

The same public sector banks objected. Why? Why? Because they said that money belongs to them. because the company had defaulted in payments. But as far as I was concerned, I asked the court, please release those monies to pay the employee salaries. The banks objected, the courts refused. But you personally took salary from Kingfish Airlines 33 crores a year. No, no, no. I took salary of 33 crores a year. I wish. Why do they talk about it? Who talks? Show me the balance sheet where it's written. Can you show me? Not the balance sheet, but the

media talks about it. I can show you an article. Ask the media where's the balance sheet. So, you never took salary? I never took 33 crores of salary. Or did you take any salary when other people were not getting paid? Obviously not. I mean, you really think I'd pay myself to the exclusion of other less wellto-do employees? That's what the world thinks. That's unfortunate view of the world about me which is sadly completely false. But then they all were on the road striking against you if you would have spoken to them in a nicer way

probably. I don't know spoken to them try to explain to them but at the end of the day they did what they thought was best. They were under stress. I respect that. I'm not blaming anybody. Okay. A couple of people have said some nasty things which is fine if they are under pressure and their livelihood was under pressure. I fully understand that and I take it in my stride. But the fact any suggestion that I willfully did not pay or that I ignored them and enriched myself in the process is completely false. While all of

this was happening, something really tragic happened. One of your employees wife committed a suicide because they were not able to pay themselves. Were you aware of that? I became aware of that and upon investigation um that was the culmination of a longstanding dispute, marital dispute. It was convenient to blame it on King Fisher Airlines and non-payment of salaries. Once again, when people are under stress and under unpleasant circumstances, I don't want to um comment on it uh in an unsavory way. It would not be right on my part. I mean, my sympathies are with the

family that um, you know, lost one of their kin, but I can tell you that we investigated the matter and okay, sadly, the tragedy did happen. Uh, and yes, sadly, equally sadly, that family had not been paid their salary. If you'd like to blame it on on me, fine. I'll take the blame. As I said, I'm not afraid of taking blame where blame is due. Now, I can face up to reality and truth. Did you feel like you should have said sorry to employees? Because you were not condolence letters for Yeah, but I didn't copy

the media. I wrote a letter of condolence, but I didn't copy the media. You know, here was here was what pissed people off that in your private life, you were enjoying. You were buying the Tu Sultan swad. You were buying cars in the UK. The value of a Tipu Sultan sword would not have paid salaries. The two MercedesBenz cars, the figment of people's imagination, would not have paid the salaries. And if your suggestion is that I should have laid low in some artificial way, forget the employees, forget the shareholders of all the other businesses, United

Spirits, United Breweries, MCF, everybody really. That would have been very fair, isn't it? and behave behave in a manner where my only asset and liability in life was kingfisher airlines I had nothing else that's the way I should have behaved right what about the salaries of the other employees of the other group companies what about the shareholders of those companies what about the future of those companies and the management of those companies. So sadly if one company fails, is it your suggestion that the whole group must fail? No, definitely not. Okay. Everybody loves to talk

about the failure of King Airlines and of course pin me the blame on me personally. Forget about everything else. It is Vijay Malia's failure. Vijay Malia's failure. Vijay Malaka Chi, Vijay Malaka Fraud, everything is Vijay Mallaya. Fine. What about United Spirits Limited, United Breweries Limited from where it started to where I left off and the wealth creation in the hands of shareholders and the wealth creation in the hands of employees probably amongst the highest in India in the corporate sector highest all forgotten nobody even refers to it. King Fisher Island Malaya that's it the narrative

begins there ends there. Do you think if you would have done things differently probably this side of you would have been more celebrated than the side which has gotten once the media started beginning with one particular channel whose anchor is known right to shout the house down right what did I start by saying vija I want to see you eating jail food. I want to see you in jail clothes, etc., etc. Started from there. Everybody had to jump on the bandwagon. I think in the same time, because we're talking about events, somebody mentioned that you

took out 35 million and invested in buying properties in France. Rubbish. some with some uh dummy company called I think Gizmo holding or something like that. Tell me if I had siphoned King Fer money to such an extent as people suggest how would the LN run on the bank's own admission on the debt recovery tribunal's own admission 4,999 crores was a debt right rest is all interest. His suggestions are that I have stolen or misused most of that or all of it. How would the aine fly if all the money borrowed from the banks Vijay

Malia pocketed? How would the aine fly? So all these allegations and false narratives being painted by people, if you analyze them, they make no sense. What also is not making sense to me is when the government said that they're going to support you in 2008, the FM said that they'll provide the loan, which they probably did with the banks. Mhm. Later in 2011, the union minister of the same government objection like he started or they started objecting that you were not paying even taxes 150 cr was spending and they started putting you in the public

eye. They were aras areas. Nobody is disputing that. But compare my areas with their India's areas. Air India's areas were probably 10 times that of Kingfisher Airlines. That was because of the stress of the aviation sector. And why did Air India didn't get anything and you got everything every little every little scrutiny happened with you if Air India was in trouble more than you which actually was the case. It's a fact. Yeah, it's a fact. They were in more they were in a more daunting situation than yours like the airline. Yeah, but all the focus

was only King for sure. Why? You should ask those that why do you think turned on the spotlights? Why do you think it happened? Clearly combination of animosity, jealousy, whole bunch of factors and you know once again unproductive things to to think about you know in life think positive. Come on it costed you a whole life in India. You must have thought about it hundreds of times. No I'm not. In any case, since 1988, I've been going to India for less than 180 days in a year. All my three children are American citizens. All have

lived outside India, never in India. My mother has been in this country for over 30 years. What do I go back to? Of course, I will get the most ceremonial welcome by the Indian media. Of course, sure I will. My goodness, it'll be headlines of every single newspaper. Okay. Okay. So 2012 the airline got suspended. Non-payment of multiple things, working capital, cash flow, everything got really really bad for you, right? And then the big bash happened, the birthday party which is often talked about in 2015. Go ahead. What happened between 2012 and 2015 with this

case? What happened? I'm asking you what happened during like did everybody forgot? What did everybody like they were not bothered about Kingfisher Airlines or what were the cases were going on? Of course everything was going on. Nothing stopped. M Nothing stopped because people don't talk about that often. What happened? Like what was going on? Nothing was going on. That's when the willful defaulter and all that. You know what the willful defaulter is all about, right? Tell me what is about what banks call a willful defaulter of somebody who has the money but won't pay. Yeah.

That's called a willful deferral. Yeah. Right. I made four settlement offers to the banks between 2012 to 2015. Yes. Which they refused to accept that nobody knows. What was the settlement that you were offering? So many settlement offers including before the court. Right. So it was always the intention to settle. I flew through Hyderabad and met the chairperson of the State Bank of India at their training academy in Hyderabad and offered a settlement. It was always my intention to settle. Never did I say I'm not going to pay. And why do you think they didn't

accept it? They wanted 14,100 crores. That's why they didn't accept it then. They didn't want your 5,000 cr because they were expecting it to go up. Like the sale of your assets will be much higher than whatever. Is that Yeah. Had they accepted my offer, they would have got 5,000 crores. Today they've got 14,100 crores. But is there any proof do you have where you offered them settlement and they didn't accept from 2015? The records of the Supreme Court of India. Proof. What better proof than the records of the Supreme Court of India, public documents,

so let's say you offered Yeah. nothing happened. Nobody, not even a needle moved. It just kept going on. It kept getting worse. And you knew this trouble was going on. And in 2015, apparently according to the media, this is where things went down where you had a grand birthday party. Your 60th birthday party 18th December. Mhm. 2015, right? Correct. What happened in that party? Nothing. It was party that normal party that I had and I've had so many of them over the years. Do you think you wouldn't you shouldn't have done that party or made

it so public? But why? Why? Because the whole narrative is against you. You spending see this is what a common person would think. If I was a kingisher employee and I've not gotten paid for XYZ reason, for let's say economic factors, business model, whatever XYZ reason, I'm not getting paid. My livelihood is dependent on this. And then I see the promoter of my company spending millions of dollars or Enrique Glacias to perform for his birthday party. I would get enraged. I want to as an employee at that point if I'm not gotten if I've not

gotten paid. I don't understand that there are 50 businesses that you have built. I understand only one thing that the promoter of my company is enjoying on my expense. the I would agree with everything that you said except your last at my expense. The promoter of the I'm talking a common person that's asking fair enough that common person didn't know that upon objection by the same banks a Karnataka high court declined to to agree to drawing readily available cash to pay the salaries. Right. Okay. I agree with you. The suffering employee would have also said

the man has United Breweries, United Spirits is none of my business. Right. Right. So I could have been a thorough hypocrite. I could have come here to London and had my party and nobody would have even known, right? Yeah. Would that have solved the problem? No. Okay. But you didn't do that. You did the public party in India. It's not public. Sorry. It was by invitation. But of course, everything that I do is covered by and I paid for it myself. King Fisher Airlines was in no position to pay. I paid for it myself. Maybe

in hindsight now, okay, and we're talking about December 2015 against an airline that shut in 2012. Mhm. If you're talking about my birthday party in December 18, 2012, you probably have a more significant point. But three years later in December 2015, okay, a milestone 60th birthday, right? Still being held against me with such venom. I don't quite get it. But okay, maybe it was a mistake. I should have probably come here to London and had my party and nobody would have known. But once again because I was transparent and lived my life pretty transparently as

I always did the media latched on to it and bashed me for it. Fine. So everything in the last 10 or 15 minutes maybe more that you are questioning me on are Indian media generated comments and narratives. None of these are facts. But are you not apologetic about what happened? Apologetic. What do I apologize for? For only to the employ like only for the employees of that business. For no one else. After putting 3,000 crores of my own money into the business, I need to apologize. You've been wronged, but so have your employees of King

Fisher. What would you say to them who lost their jobs, who still hold angst against you? If you were directly just talking to them and not me, what would you tell them? I would say I'm deeply sorry for what happened to them, I would say, I'm deeply sorry that some of them didn't get paid their salaries. I have no excuses to offer. I take full responsibility. But for those who care to listen, there was money lying in deposit with the Karnataka High Court. I specifically applied to court to pay the salaries of King Shelline staff.

The banks objected and the court refused the permission. There was really nothing I could do beyond that. And what would you tell those employees who are still questioning that hey we were in trouble and you tried everything to get that money from the court but it didn't help then why did you go out and party like a king on your 60th birthday when we were suffering uh we need to look at the timeline here airlines shut down 2012. My 60th birthday was in December 2015. Right? There was nothing I could do in the interim to

find money to pay the staff in particular because any money that could have been infused theoretically would have been taken by the banks because all the assets were frozen. Did your legal advise you not to pay? Absolutely not. I told my legal advisers to find every single avenue to pay and they and it didn't work. They couldn't find a way. But ultimately because of the freezing all the money was lying under the control of the court. So we couldn't touch the money and every penny that you would have infused just for their intention to pay

your employees would have still gotten frozen. You see the court order did not differentiate between employees and general corporate purposes. Any money in the account of the airline was frozen. Frozen by the banks, frozen by tax department, frozen by service tax. Everything was frozen. The chunk of available cash was with the court and that was actually cash of UBHL, not Kingfish Airlines cash of United Breweries Holdings Limited, one of the cogntos. UBL said we want to pay King Fel and staff salaries. Please allow us. The banks objected and the court did not give permission. That

is fact. They I I would feel very sad if somebody said I had no intention to pay or that I ignored to make the efforts. I made every single effort I could. Are you do you ever feel sorry that you couldn't do anything to give money to the employees? Obviously, but um are you suggesting that I'm not sorry for what happened to King Fischer and the collateral damage that was caused to everybody? I'm asking you, are you? I said I was very sad about the fact that the You were sad but were you sorry about

it? Sorry. I apologize publicly to everyone for the failure of King Fisher Airlines. Till today I am willing to apologize. I did my very best. I tried very very hard. I put in my money, blood, sweat, and tears. It didn't work. Sadly, it didn't work. I'm very sorry. At the end of the day, frankly, it's what I think of myself when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning. Have you done good or have you not done good? Are you a success or are you a failure? What is the answer? I'm a big

failure according to Indians. Fine. I'm a big failure. But when I look at myself in the mirror, I don't see failure. But does it bother you? Who created one.75 lakh cr of market cap in the in the alcoholic business? Who created it? Even after creating such a behemoth, people think you're a failed business owner. Fair enough. So let Does it bother you? And who made King Fisher Airlines so public? Who made it? Dammania airways started and failed. East West Airlines started and failed, right? Jet Airways eventually failed, right? Modilu started and failed, right? Paramount started

and failed. You read about them only King Fisher and Malia. Is that not a targeted attack? Because here's what got crafted after it. Who crafted it? I'll tell you. I'll come to that. Tell me then. So, tell me what about all these other aviation failures? See, nobody cares about them because nobody was as public as you. Ah, so now we're talking that I pay the price for my own public image and the fact that you left the country. Ah that's which is another which is another uh so I'll come to the series of events of

these both of them no problem okay so 2015 December this happened before that CBI started investigating you and I appeared before the CBI four times h and CBI concluded their case that they found you siphoning the money was that the completely false. Okay. There is no allegation of money siphoning by CBI. What did CBI conclude? Nothing. That I spent on a private jet which was Kingfish Airlines own assets. Yeah. That I misrepresented to IDBI while taking the loan. Mhm. What did you misrepresent? That I misrepresented. Uh you asked me a question about brand valuation, right?

So one of them one of the allegations brand valuation. Was it also bizarre like IDBI gave you loan in just 2 days and on Sunday you got the money transferred in your bank. Yeah. But then they that was a short-term loan. Okay. They got the money back and then they participated in the consortium lending. Okay. Yeah. So but there is no allegation of siphoning money. No. Zero. So there was misrepresentation. Yeah. That's and using that money or using the Kingfisher loan proceedings to buy a private jet. Not private jet was owned by King Airlines. The

King Airlines own asset. They said I misused it. I misused it for personal trips. Did you? I think if you see the line of private jets starting from Mr. Aman's in Bombay airport and ask them who uses your jets, you'll get the answer. Come on. Deflecting is not a right way. Deflecting. I'm asking you. What? Did you misuse it? What is misuse? I don't know. Whatever they're quoting, do you agree with it or no? So, you agree with the CBI? No, I'm asking you. Do you agree with it or not? I am not agree with

it. Obviously, I don't agree with it. You used it for business purposes only. What do you mean business purposes? If I had to fly on holiday, I'd say private jet. That's what CB had problem with. Is that the case? Yes. That you you you took the Come on. That would not only be the case. Huh? That would be a part of your case. Let's say you This is what I'm saying. The principle one was misrepresentation. Okay. Yeah. So that is first misrepresentation and because of this they issued an LOC they issued LOC right lookout circular

to the immigration office that should not leave the country no I'm not aware of any of that okay because then there was a public issuance against in 2015 where the LOC which was issued for you had few words changed I know nothing about this okay so there And this I'm quoting from again another article where I can show you the article where it's I've never heard of this before. Okay. So the article said that you met with someone really powerful and after that in just few months the lookout circular got changed and the lookout circular

changed into okay next time to the immigration off officers that if Vijay Malia comes to the airport and want to leave the country you need to inform us where is he going and for what purposes you don't need to stop him but earlier the CBI put out a lookout notice that you should not allow Vijay Malia to leave the country and this change was made in 2015. I know nothing about this. This is the first time you are informing me. I went in and out multiple times during the never never a problem at all and

what you're telling me now is news to me. I've never known of LOC issued or any other form of notice. The changed happened on 24th November 2015. Just few words and it specifically read this was a fresh LOC that he needs to be questioned before leaving the country. Where is he going and needs to and this needs to be informed to CBI after that he can continue traveling. He should not be stopped. That's fine. that you said when in 2015 24th November 2015 a fresh LOC was and before that before that there was just I

don't have must have gone in four times before that two oh so then where's the LOC so all of this is random thing that you met someone really powerful in Delhi and got changed and you changed your CBI circular or something nonsense Okay. Then another thing then another series of event happened because after your public birthday party people started uh losing their They started getting they started getting pissed. It became even more public. This 2015 end of it your Supreme Court interfered. I guess Supreme Court entered in this whole case and they put up a

bench that 3rd March 2016 your case needs to be heard or needs to be represented in front of Supreme Court. On 1st March 2016, you I think you were in Delhi, you went to the parliament and 2nd March you left the country one day before when you were about to be present in front of Supreme Court. Is all of this real or none of it is real? No, no, this is completely false. There was no Supreme Court hearing. I was not summoned to court. I I'm not aware of any court hearing. I told the finance

minister Arun Jetley before leaving for the airport and then I flew from Delhi to London. I was on my way to Geneva for a FIA world council meeting which was fixed months ago. I told the finance minister because I went from parliament to Delhi airport when this news hit the media once again it created a storm. Yeah. People went running to Mr. Jetley. He denied meeting me. A Congress MP saw us and then said to the media, "No, I saw them together." Mr. Jetley had to retract his statement and yes, yes, I met him, but

only while I was walking. It was a fleeting meeting. I never said I went to Mr. Jetley's office, sat in front of him, had tea with him. All I said is I told the finance minister while leaving I'm going to London. I have to go to Geneva for a meeting. I'll be back. Please tell the banks to sit across the table and settle with me. How long does this take this one sentence? A minute or two. But you see the way he denied it. Then when the Congress MP pointed out his mistake that he saw

us, he quickly changed. This is the problem with the media. Particularly where I'm concerned. They conjure up stuff. They blow things well out of proportion. Okay? If it's good for their business, let them continue doing it. So all of this is nuisance that on 2nd of March you left Delhi airport for London in a jet airways flight 9W122 from T3 with 55 big suitcases and somebody says 27, somebody says 55. I mean different newspapers, different stuff. What difference does it make? They say LOC then they say no LOC then I tell the finance minister I'm

going then he says no then he says no he had a fleeting meeting with me and all this 15 18 suitcases were complete and utter rubbish. So your intention was never to leave the country. Look please understand this whole narrative of Bhagya Bhaga because this is where it starts. Yeah, this is coming from people who don't know their facts. Tell us the facts. I came to England in 1988. I got my indefinite leave to remain ILR in 1992. For 32 years, I have been a permanent resident of the UK allowed only to spend 180 days

in India because I have preserved my non-resident status since 1988. All right, that is why I used to go back and forth so often. All right. So I came I was attending a scheduled meeting in Geneva like I told you. What happened? The loudest anchor in the television industry started all the media piled on. Huge hungama. How did Vijay Mala leave? How did he leave? like any normal person on a jet airways flight that too after telling the finance minister that I'm going driving from parliament house to the airport right so this whole tamasha started

right how does government normally react to media frenzy check your own facts I said okay let things cool On top of that, I was negotiating with my foreign collaborators to sell certain shares so that I could pay the banks. My intention was always to settle with the banks. Right. Yeah. So, I told I wrote to the enforcement directorate who sent me a summon. I need some time. I'm negotiating. I want to settle with the banks. I've got some business to do. I've already appeared before the CBI. I will of course I will appear before you.

Right. Just give me some time. What happened in the meantime? They revoked my passport. Revoked it. When When was this revoking? 2016. Oh, right before you left. Before. Right after you left. Yeah. Passport gone. How to travel? So you got stuck because they revoked your passport. Your intention was to come back to country. Many things may have been different. No. But your intention was without without a passport. Where do you go? Nowhere. Correct. Because you were a British citizen. Not citizen. Permanent res. Permanent resident. I kept my Indian passport because I was a member of

parliament. Okay. which I could not be a member of parliament had I not been an Indian citizen. So if your intention was to come back to the country why didn't people allow you look that you should ask the people why should I sit and speculate but aren't they spending millions of dollars in cases to get your extradition done? Yes. because they have to make a show of things as well. No, have I please? Let's be very clear. Can somebody from the government say to the public, "What crime have I committed for which I must be

investigated? Have I stolen money from the banks? You must have a primacy case that I've stolen. You can't just make it up in your head. Yeah. That I've stolen money from the banks. You need some primacy evidence. Have I done any money laundering? Have I done any drug smuggling? Have I been involved in any violent crime? What is the allegation against Vijay Mallaya? Nobody can have an allegation against Vijay Mallaya of dishonesty because I have always been honest and truthful. I have never borrowed and I have never cheated and I never will. But you got

this tag of willful defaulter. Willful defaulter is a person who can pay and who doesn't pay. That's a crime. That's crime, isn't it? Make up your mind. Then why did you freeze all my assets? You froze my assets. Okay. In 2016, right? That's how you've recovered 14,100 crores, right? You can't freeze assets of a person on one hand and call him a chore on the other hand. See, they call you willful defaulter because you had money and you didn't pay. And that's why they had to take such a strict action to freeze your assets. If

you would have paid earlier then they would have not done this. But if you're saying that from 2012 to 2015 you have applied multiple times in the court that you want to settle. Yes. Why is all of this happening? I think it's very clear it's also been a part of the media where a particular senior officer of the state bank of India said to a good friend of mine that as a banker I would have settled with Vijay a long time ago but if I do any settlement with him I'll have the CBI on my

neck the very next day. And why do you think CBI has to do all of these things? Because technically banks, you're saying banks want 14,000 cr. Isn't the CBI called a cage parrot? But then banks ultimately want 14,000 cr. So they don't want anything to happen. Why would bank want to settle? Who knows? Who knows? If you go to the banks today, they may tell you I owe even more money. Tell me real numbers because somewhere it's written 9,000 K or somewhere it's written there is no 9,000 that is all imagination 6203 is the real

number judgment debt 6203 6,23 and you have been vocal about it I was going through your tweets publicly you have been very vocal about that hey I want to pay come talk to me hey I want to settle there are multiple times you've just said it I have show you letters I've written to the banks nothing we cannot engage with you period right you were part of the parliament Mhm. And you had you were influential. You had money. You were powerful. You could do nothing about all of this. What went wrong? That probably is the

cause of everything that followed. Who do you make a poster boy? Somebody who is insignificant. Is it? Why would if you want to if you want to make an example of somebody who do you make an example of a visible person or an invisible person? Definitely a visible person. Correct. So there you have got the answer. But why would they want to make an example out of you when you were ready to settle? It was just a business failure in your terms. It it suits you no to reject a settlement offer and to continue to

claim that amounts are due to the banks and you therefore you're a defaulter and therefore we are going to hound you and chase you. It suits the narrative today in India business failure means fraud. If purely that line you're talking about asking me about me, why people tag me woolful defaulter? Why they accuse me? Why the narrative is so negative about me? What happened to poor Nar Goyel? What happened? India's biggest airlines jet collapsed. Naresh Goyel went to jail. What happened to people like Gautam Tapur in Delhi in jail? Right? So if your business does

badly, you're automatically referred to as a fraud. The inference is that you have stolen. In which countries does this happen? The biggest companies in the world fail, right? Are there their management, senior management put in jail? Are they accused of fraud? The whole purpose of business is associated with certain risk as well. Y right. But in India, sadly, you have a business that fails. You're accused of fraud and improper conduct. And people say and the government and the agencies that your fraud or people who are businesses have failed are fraud because they've taken money from

the banks which is a common taxpayers money which is common people's money. So if you take common people's money and you're not able to repay it then you're considered wrong. But if in your case if they have actually recovered more than 2.5x of it or probably somewhere around that number why are they still behind you? Because as I said, have you ever heard of any bank not rendering an account to a borrower or a guaranter? Despite 15 reminders, the same banks have not given me a statement of account. Not one. Have you ever heard of

such conduct anywhere in the world? For the first time, it is through the statement in parliament of the finance minister and the printed report of the ministry of finance that they have shown 14,100 crores recovered from me. The government have the banks have not rendered a statement of account. That is why I have gone to the Karnataka High Court asking the court to direct the banks to give me a statement of account. That is the pitiful state of affairs. Now let me explain things to you very in a summary fashion in this entire debt of

Kingfisher Airlines and the recovery. You have the recovery officer of the debt recovery tribunal. Yeah. The debt recovery tribunal is the one that that that gave the certificate of debt. They have recovery officers whose job it is to recover against that recovery certificate and inform the tribunal about how much has been recovered because when the full amount is recovered the debt recovery tribunal will issue a discharge certificate that your debt is paid. Second is because the second guarantor United Breweries Holdings Limited is in liquidation. It is in the control of the official liquidator. The official

liquidator is also obliged to give an account to the court right on the liquidation which includes being a co-arer of the king fisher airlines debt right both these have stated in court in judicial proceedings that the banks have been fully paid yet the banks have not submitted a statement of account. I have had to go to the Karnataka High Court pleading with them to please direct the banks to submit a statement of account and of course the official liquidator and the recovery officer as well. This is the conduct of those banks and you're asking me

questions about why they didn't do this and why they didn't do that. Does it happen with other entrepreneurs as well? I'd be shocked if it did. I've never heard of anything like this. Do you think the Indian system gets rigged against the entrepreneurs or the business owners who get too powerful after a point? It's certainly rigable because in your case, this is what happened, right? In my case, all the facts are there for everyone to see. Then sir, what's the future? Like what what's going to happen now? What's happening in your story? What you're telling

is completely different than anything and everything that any Indian person out there who will do little research about you would find. It's completely different than what you're telling. But if you do research on me, what are you going to find? You will only find the narrative generated over a period of time by the Indian legacy media and to certain extent the government and what they have said and of course when I say government it includes CBI and ED and this that and the other. All right, that's all you will find. All of which is false

narrative either deliberately written or in some cases with the media ignorately written. So is there a businessman, politician, media kind of nexus against you in India? I don't know who is against me except this government and I made no bones about it that I am their poster boy. I am also a political football, right? You must have heard the the narrative. BJP tells Congressw. Congress responds to [Music] BJP is the football in the middle. What is the biggest challenge of doing business in India? government extreme government it's in the Indian DNA no matter what a

state government or a federal government may say about ease of doing business in India there is no ease of doing business in India there are hurdles bureaucratic hurdles political hurdles all along the way they may have reduced over a period of time uh but but no I mean you can't compare India and ease of doing business in India with any of the western economies. But how did you manage that before? Like earlier you expanded your group from couple of hundred crores to thousands of critically you must be navigating somehow with all these challenges. What did

you do? That's what I said. I I had to maintain good relations with almost 29 countries. That's a 29 states all of which were empowered by the constitution to have their own policy on liquor. So I had to effectively be in the good books of 29 chief ministers. What do you mean by becoming or getting in the good books of the government? Well, you know, like were you doing favors? They were asking favors to you. Look, let me tell you when elections were announced, I would desperately want to take a holiday outside India. Why? Because

I didn't want to be accessible. The politicians always felt that you know the liquor business was the cash cow that would meet their electoral aspirations. um you know sometimes these aspirations were completely unreasonable and impractical but no I mean look dealing with government doesn't mean underhand exchange of money okay it definitely doesn't I mean whoever said that you know I can buy my way through X Y or Z is wrong okay you can have good relations with people and provided you present um a proposal to them that meets their own political objectives, it works well.

But would there ever be exchange under the table as well? All of that used to work. No, you know, I'm not going to confirm or deny that because I leave it to your imagination because I think you know India as much as I know India and They would ask for backing the election campaigns. That's what they would ask technically. Or were there was there something else as well? Look, the demands were varied. Give me give me example of two three demands. The demands were first of all cash. Second copious amounts of alcohol which is seems

to be an essential part of any electoral campaign for free. Vehicles. Vehicles. Cars. vehicles, jeeps, cars. Yeah. So it was multifarious but the easiest for me was to disbuzz alcohol. M which is you know at the end of the day I was in a privileged position heading India's largest alcohol company. I could say all right fine you know but yeah alcohol plays a big role in elections in India even today. How do you make money now? How do I make money? Like today, how do you make money? I make a I I get a modest

salary from my company. Not the Indian companies. No. So you like do you own anything here? There are companies here or in other countries? Of course. I told you I've been a non-resident since 1988. Okay. Uh even though I sold Bger paints in 1996, I've had several other businesses outside of India for the last 30 years. What was your net worth at peak in India? I don't know because it fluctuated with the share value any number to great amount of speculation. Okay. Frankly, what difference does it make? What's in it worth today? I don't know.

probably zero according to the banks probably. Walk me through your day today. What do you do now after all of this and done? What time do you wake up? How do you keep yourself busy? What do you do? Well, I have six dogs. I love them. I love dogs. I play with them. I like to keep a breast of international news. Um, I love my dogs. I play with them a lot. Uh, I have a few classic cars which I like to tinker with, but I have an office on the property next door with my

staff and yeah, as I told you, I have running businesses and so I keep an eye on them, but sadly a lot of time is taken on unproductive and very expensive legal matters. Um sadly once again the banks in India who are stateowned banks public sector banks carried their attack on me here even before the UK courts. So as if Indian legal proceedings were not enough they even came here. M fine. So, I have to defend myself. And the businesses that you run here, they fund the legal fees and everything that you're doing. Yeah. There's,

let's put it this way, there's enough to go around. What kind of businesses are here? The same brewery or something else. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Basically, save my core business, alcohol brewery or all that. You love it. You love doing the same thing. That's what's in my blood. You know, I used to joke when I was young. I said I was born in a bottle. Wow. Do you feel restricted now? Because you just use word I was born in a bottle. Do you feel that you've been caged in a bottle again with all these legal matters

because you don't have a passport. You're a free bird flying around all over the world. Yeah. So now you're stuck here. But that freedom went in 2016 when the Indian government revoked my passport. So it wasn't a suspension, it was a revocation. So I knew back then the consequence was no trouble, right? So for a guy who used to be on a plane three four times a week flying around the world to be in one country for nine long years certainly a game changer. It must be but it's not a matter of life and death.

I mean it isn't that profound because there's enough and more to do and to enjoy a quality of life that okay has shrunk in many ways from what used to be but it's still okay one must get on and move on. Does it not bother you? No. Do I well I it doesn't bother me. Do I look bothered? No, not to me. It's not a question of what is the meaning of do I get up in the morning and wipe my tears away every day? No. Someday some point you're like I'm done with this. Like

what the hell is happening with me? What is my solution? What are my options? The government of India has revoked my passport. Right? All I can get is a one-way travel pass to India. That's it. What about my constitutional rights that every Indian citizen is entitled to a passport? And what happens if I try to enforce those? It'll drag on for years in the court by the time I might be too old to travel. So don't you feel lonely here? No. Well, I have a lot of my friends uh here in England. I lot of

people come and visit me. Uh well, another one of life's lessons is when times are tough, you realize who your actual friends are. Then I have realized that very comprehensively. I mean those who used to be my so-called buddies who uh in times of my heyday for lack of a better word and nowhere to be said. So you used to hang out with a lot of billionaires, Bollywood celebrities, politicians, lot of people and your friends from the corporate world. They all stopped taking up your calls. No, no, no, no. The politicians certainly stopped. And I

think as one one of the many politicians explained to me quite truthfully, which I respect, he said if we are seen to be associated with Jews, this government will come after us, you know, because I think there in the political world, I think it's pretty well known and more importantly pretty obvious that this government is after me. M um so they want to protect themselves as far as uh corporate titans are concerned I mean Kiran Mazumar bless her soul she's like my sister makes it a point to be in constant touch comes to England we

always have a meal together and like that there are few other good friends who keep in touch but Otherwise no certainly not as frequently as I would have been in touch with them or seen them when I was in India and all these troubles hadn't started. Talk about Kiran Mazumar Sha she publicly talks about you and how close you were like since childhood you were friends and she talks about your generosity your optimism. She's been very vocal that you gave it all to save and fight it all. You she has gone out in public and

said that just it was bad times and bad things which happened to you but you were right and you gave it all away. So she talks about it and someone of that stature living in a very public market in country like India usually people stay away from these conversations and people would want to she talks but she doesn't she talks about it everyone every time people ask about you she's been okay about it in fact there was a statement that she said lot of people are optimistic which I was probably rather more optimistic than most

and version of just optimism. Let me tell you, Kiran and me grew up together. I talked about the brewery house in Bangalore. At that time there was a little colony. So there was a brewery house in which I lived and then four other bungalows. The one next to the brewery house was actually occupied by Kiran Mazuman and her father. Her father was the chief brewer and the technical director of UB. Okay. Okay. And so Kiran and her two brothers and mom grew up in my house in my in my colony with one wall separating us.

So we were very very close uh and and Kiran has been very very different. She started off being a qualified brew master. How many Indian women can you think of who would go and qualify as a brew master? But Kiran was determined to do it and she did it in Australia. So Kiran as an entrepreneur not only has been brilliant but has a super brilliant track record but she's a tough cookie and she speaks her mind which is something that people should respect and being a woman at that. So I'm so grateful for her public

support of me. She knows what I went through with Kingfisher Airlines. I used to share it with her all the time. And she knew that I gave it my all. I forget about just putting in 3,000 crores. I mean, every bit of my blood, sweat, and tears went into trying to make King Fisher Airlines work. Now that she isn't here, you're not there. You're alone. friends, parties, uh businesses, that busy, restless life, nothing is there. In 9 years, what was the loneliest day of your life? I I always have had something to do. I haven't

been sitting alone. Uh I told you I my interests keep me occupied. My pace of life is slowed down dramatically. My pace of life now is probably one of semi-retirement to be honest. But that's what happens when you reach retirement age, isn't it? So the frenzy of the past doesn't last forever. And I'm in that phase. But I have enough and more interest to keep me occupied. What do people misunderstand about you? I don't know what people understand to begin with. Forget about misunderstanding. I mean, people in general, particularly the media, they hate my guts.

They don't like the fact that I rarely get flustered and they try to break me down deliberately brick by brick. They try very very hard but you know maybe it's my upbringing in life. Maybe because I started very young. I'm tough and tough so I don't get brow beats. I don't get pushed over. I stand my ground. And the media hate it. They absolutely hate it. So I've heard all this. Malia is arrogant. Malia is a show off X Y and Z. And the narrative keeps repeating time and time and time again because I have

never taken out my handkerchief and started weeping in front of them. They would love that. If I did that in front of the legacy media, probably the whole narrative about me would change. But that's not me. Is this also has this become your defense mechanism now? There was never any defense mechanism. Like now it has become your image that hey I don't get I'm not going to break in front of you guys. So I'm going to stick through it and that's why I won't show my real side. I won't show my real emotions. I won't

show what I'm feeling. But what I'm feeling is real. There is no other side. There is no other side. Please understand for 50 years. I've been in charge. I've been through a lot. I've been there, done that. He's toughened me up. I faced the crisis of Kingfisher Airlines. I felt it more than anybody else. I gave it my all, but I kept myself together because I was a leader. If I had crumbled and collapsed, the airline would have crumbled and collapsed a lot earlier than it did. What are you feeling right now as you talk

about you gave it all and you still couldn't save King Fisher? Well, I'm I'm sad about it because you know it's not just about King Fisher. I have never been used to business failure. I took risks. I made bold decisions and I built my core business in alcohol into something I could be greatly proud of. I failed with Kingfisher and that hurts me more than anything else. Kingfisher was a wonderful product, probably the most awarded airline ever, providing connectivity to places in India that were never connected by air before and in an environment promising growth.

Today, India is the biggest single growth market for aviation in the world. Can you imagine if King Fcher was still flying? It was just circumstances at that particular time, government policies that didn't help and mounting losses. But I gave it my all. I I told you quite apart from putting in 3,000 crores cash into Kingfisher Airlines and the final straw was the refusal to let Etihad invest in King Fisha and that was it. I had run out of options. Can you imagine how I felt? I felt miserable. What's your biggest fear now? My fear? Are

you afraid of anything? Well, what can I be afraid of? What can I be afraid of? What do I do that would scare me? Living a semi-retired life, what can happen that's going to uh scare me? Extradition. Oh, yeah. Look, if you're talking about the legal issues, there are multiple legal issues. All right, which I will defend before the courts of law both in this country as well as in India. And any legal case can go either way. You can't sit and predict the outcome. Neither can you celebrate a potential outcome and neither can you

cry about a potential outcome. That's what legal cases are all about. But are you prepared for the worst? Of course, I have to face the worst. I I no qualms or no doubts in my mind that if the worst is what is destined for me, that's what's destined for me and you face it head on. What do you think is worst? What is what can happen the worst? Oh, what I think is very clear, what the Indian government wants, what many of the Indian media anchors want, jail clothes, jail food in Thihar or Arur Road

or God knows which jail in India. That's it. And spend the rest of my life behind bars. That's it. Have you ever imagined yourself actually going to jail? Well, if that's what is inevitable, what option do I have? Is it inevitable? Might be. I'm not an astrologer. I'll fight my way in court. Doesn't it scare you that I lived a king-sized life and now I might end up in jail? Uh, and those that is how I'm going to end my life like probably. Correct. So, I said earlier today, right? hero to zero and you're okay

with it. What option do I have? Do you ever wake up and think like why me? What is this happening? Because in your head you're clear and you say that you've not done anything wrong. So do you ever feel like why the hell me? Maybe that's my destiny. Maybe my stars are misalignant. Do you believe in it? No. I don't believe in astrology. But do you believe in God? In God very much so. I'm deeply religious. I have gone to most of the temples in India particularly South India. I've made my modest offerings to various

temples. I I don't know whether you know but the Sabriala temple in Kerala the entire gold roof was donated by me. Tirupati Tirumala temple uh the entire gold plating of the front of the sanctum was donated by me. I've donated dwaja tambas in the subramanya temple and moambika temple. I Yeah. So I I definitely believe in God. Do you not then question it? No, I don't question it. I just I just I believe like I believe in God so much. I do so much for my religious belief and still I'm going through all of this.

Yeah. Well, ultimately God will protect me. That if I have to have a rough ride in the process, maybe that was also what God wants. Do you think winning the case is important for you now? Or you're like, even if it gets stretched, I've come terms to my life. I'm aging. It's okay. Unfortunately, the word stretch doesn't work in English courts. Okay. There's nothing known as stretching a case in this country. In India, yes, sadly, that's why legal matters take so much time to resolve. Here, dates fix, trial, it's fixed, decision rendered, story over. So,

you can't willfully kind of string things along. But is it important for you to win? Yes, because I believe I should win on merit. What have I done? I've done nothing wrong. I haven't I'm not a criminal. If you could go back to your younger self, what would you tell your younger self? Would you tell him to do anything differently? I think the values I've instilled in my my son in particular and my all my three children is by example my hard work. They have of course they were very young but they've seen how hard

I worked and basically the dedication and commitment to your objectives and your responsibilities. That's it. But would you go to your younger self and tell something different? What could what what choices would I have? If you gave me a choice on what I would choose, I might choose. But if I was probably never start Kingfisher Airlines because that all cost you the trouble. Yeah, good possibility. Good possibility that maybe I should have just said I'm going to stick to my core business of alcohol and just not do anything else. Do you think any part of

it you would have dealt with little in a different way anything about you about the choices you've made? Yeah, maybe I made one wrong choice in listening to the finance minister Mr. Prana Mukhaji when I went to him I realized the writing was on the wall. They were very tough times and I told him I have to downsize this airline and he said no no no you cannot and the banks will support you and so on and so forth and yeah I I listened to him maybe I shouldn't have I should have gone ahead and

downsized it and had I downsized it the financial burden would have been far less and probably king Fischer would have been flying till today what's one thing about extreme wealth that people common people don't understand. I don't know because I've never had extreme wealth uh ever. The kind of wealth you had was extreme for a large share of people around the world, not just our country. Once again, a major misconception. Just because I had the Kingfisher calendar with pretty models. Just because I I sponsored the Indian Derby in horse racing. Just because I sponsored fashion.

All of which were to my mind marketing tools with the singular objective of promoting my brands. And I got the tag of king of good times which gave the impression that I was super rich. I didn't spend a penny from my pocket. None. But you were super rich. You still are super rich. I'm not. All my assets in India have been taken. Right. So yes, there were thousands of crone. Right? So what do I have left? That's India. Here you're sitting in my house. I've explained my lifestyle. It's normal. What's super rich about it? Come

on. This is super. What's super rich about it? This is super rich. Let's just agree to disagree here because come on. Like what are we even talking about? This is not a life of somebody a normal taxpayer or a normal person going to a job or 99% of the people in the world. Were you ever in control of your public image? Why I never even tried? Because what you're telling the version that I get to see in last two days and what probably millions of people would get to see now is a version that is

completely different that is out there. That's why I'm doing the podcast with you. You built a personal brand which crashed down way worse than King Fisher Airlines. Did you ever make it or it was always just the media who did it? It was always the media who did it. So you were never control of your personal brand ever at any point? Not once. Never even paid attention to it. And you never bothered. No. Why should I bother? And why bother now? Absolutely correct. But what's going on? Like why why do you care now? Because I'm

not talking about brand Vijay Mallaya. I'm talking about how I have been wronged. I'd like to show you something. All right. Here is here is the recovery certificate of the debt recovery tribunal. Right? It says recovery certificate 6,23 crores 35 lakhs 3,879 and Pisa 42 only. That's the 6,23 crores plus interest at 11.5% with yearly rests. All right. So that is that is evidence of the debt. Right? Okay. You asked me earlier where did this 9,000 cr figure come from? This is the official debt recovery tribunal Karnataka Bangalore's document that's and they have said that

you owe 6,2003 cr rupees me along with four others four others yeah correct okay kingfisher airlines United Beries Vijay Malia Kingfisher fine west correct okay so the assets of all those combined right would need to satisfy the judgment debt of 6,0002 crores. Yeah. Before I go very further, I'm the one under attack. Not all four. Anyway, you ask me about where this 9,000 figure came from. Yeah, because it's written 6,2003. No problem. Plus interest, whatever the case may be. That is dated 2017. If you see the date of the document. Yeah, I can't. Where is

this? Maybe you should go to the end. Okay. Last signing. Yeah. Date of deliveries 26 July 17. Correct. Okay. And then I'll show you another report about an interview with the prime minister. Okay. March 29, 2019 in which the prime minister has said he owed 9,000 cr but government recovered 14,000 cr says PM Modi on India's action against Vijay Malia. Yeah. But so why would a PM say 9,000 cr where this number? I am as perplexed as you are because the banks have not ever submitted a statement of account to me which in itself is

very strange but the prime minister has said it and it has been widely reported all right and it quotes the figure of 9,000 crores now the prime minister of India is not going to make a frivolous statement. Somebody must have told him number but I wonder if there was no keen governmental interest in me. It's not normal for a prime minister of the world's largest democracy to be talking about a recovery from a guarantor called Vijay Malia. He addressed it because your case was very public and a lot of people were questioning it. You became

a public matter. You were no more a private defaulter. So I'm the only one according to you. No, you were too way too public than others. There are several other companies who have borrowed a lot more money. uh I mean a lot seriously a lot more money but nobody gets mentioned anyway that's fine I'm just narrating the sequence of events then be before we go there who are you actually fighting against media government or judiciary I'm not in uh court against the media I'm not in court against the judiciary. I can't be I'm defending myself

from those who are prosecuting me and the prosecutor is either the government or the bank. Simple. Okay, I'll go through the series of events. Let's go through those events together. One of the sort of allegations is that I improperly borrowed money from the IDBI bank by some sort of nexus. Yeah. Between you and the general manager and no no the chairman and managing director and executive directors which is a lot of people were involved so that the normal rules of lending were not applicable to you. IDBI Bank had a Reserve Bank of India and a

um Ministry of Finance representative on their board. All the loans that King Airlines received were approved by their board. Right. M that I will draw your attention to public statement in 2021 because IDBI is a publicly listed entity had to report their financial performance to the stock exchange and announcing the quarter 1 results the managing director and CEO MK Sharma Um said that 278 crores by way of principle and 331 crores by way of interest aggregating 753 crores was recovered from Kingfisher Airlines. This is in 2021 and therefore IDBI was paid in full. Then why

why does CBI and ED find you guilty? Because once they file their charge sheets, the presumption is that you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Whereas the law requires the opposite. You are presumed innocent until they prove you guilty. I'm still waiting for the CBI and enforcement directors to produce evidence of my guilt, but they continue to pursue me on behalf of the banks. Now, you see here, right, the this follows the finance minister statement in parliament on the floor of parliament. on December 17th, 2024, which is a few months ago. But here is

the annual report of the Ministry of Finance printed hard copy for the year 2425 in which they say under 4.2.14 2.14 restitution of properties to victims of money laundering/ legitimate claimments. Okay. And it goes on to say the enforcement directorate is not only actively pursuing the economic offenders to unravel the money laundering but at the same time is also making efforts for the restitution or return of assets to the banks and others who have been defrauded by the offenders. Right. The ED has successfully restored properties valued at approximately rupees 22,280 crores to victims or legitimate

claimments. The details of the restitution/restoration done by ED are given below. Number one, Vijay Mallaya case quantum of properties restored 14,131.6 six crores and in the comment section details of restoration says complete amount of attached properties have been successfully restored to the public sector banks. How did they recover 14,000 cr? What did they sell? What did they do? They have not given me a statement of account. So you don't know what property shares have been sold. We talked earlier about the properties that were given to them, right? So everything the give walk me through it

again if you can please. What were the things that how did they recover 14,000 all my assets and highlight two or three shares which got like 14 properties everything they attached and they've sold but in the absence of a statement of account can you believe it right that from 2017 the date of the DRT order till today 2025 the banks have not given me a statement of account how much recovery they made on which date, how much interest they have charged, how the interest gets reduced because of recoveries made etc. and what the net position

is nothing reminders to the banks from my English lawyers remain unanswered. letters from me personally to the chairman of the SBI remains unanswered and my last letter requesting a meeting to resolve these issues came back with the response saying we are not interested in meeting. I have had to go to the Karnataka High Court to request the court to direct the banks to give me a statement of account. Is this normal? Do you think there is another um example like this anywhere in the world? I mean, it's ridiculous. So, if I'm not targeted, then why

am I being treated like this? But recovering all the money that you owed is not as same as you paying them willfully. These are two different things. Yes. So maybe you I made four different settlement offers from in writing from when to when to around 2016 including before the Supreme Court of India which the banks dismissed before you left the country you made this. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been trying to settle with the banks. Do you have that proof? Yeah. It's public record. Supreme Court of India records. Absolutely. I would also like to remind

you I told the finance minister that I was leaving in 2016 and March and told him that puri please facilitate meeting with the banks to settle this loan issue. You know here's something that don't add up for me. On 29th February 2016, Supreme Court announced that the plea seeking action against Vijay Malia would be heard on March 3 and you left on March 2nd. I'm not aware of this Supreme Court directive. How is it possible? Somebody from inside must have told you something because if a Supreme Court declares a date against you. Mhm. How were

you not aware? You were already fighting. There were lawyers after lawyers. I'm sure there must be something because there was no such Supreme Court directive. Simple. But it's out there in every media everywhere. But it's written like if you go back if you if you search today all the newspapers online everything that you see it's said that on 29th February Supreme Court directed that and you left on March second but my world council meeting okay obligation and appointment was fixed 3 months before that that is okay I'm not saying that so that was already a

wellestablished travel plan I once again remind you I told the finance minister himself on the day of my departure but that doesn't mean that you were not aware of this of what I'm I'm sorry I don't get it aware of the fact that Supreme Court has a hearing against you on March 3rd absolutely not there was no such hearing there was no such hearing Supreme Court has said this all Right. So like I have provided you documentary evidence. If I'm shown a piece of paper that states that there was a Supreme Court hearing in my

case scheduled on the day of my departure, I March 3rd. You you left on March 2nd. Yeah. So unfortunately I don't have the Supreme Court document but I only have news and news. I am not aware of any such Supreme Court directive. I'm not aware of it. Okay. Then the other case you said once you landed here your passport was revoked. Mhm. You wanted to maybe come back but you were yourself in shock that the passport was revoked. Right. Yes. Tell walk me through the day when you got to know that you can't come back

to India. I don't remember the exact date but I like what were you going through when did you get like the moment you got to know that your passport been suspended or revoked yeah but suspension and other forms of restriction would have been um well understood or perceived differently but revocation of a passport it's the most severe form of withdrawal Right. To revoke. Yeah. So because I did not attend the summons of the enforcement directors to which I replied and I said I'm coming back but I need some time. I need to arrange some money

to pay off the bank loans etc. Mhm. But they revoked the passport. what they intended to achieve by revocation of my passport. I still do not know. But so on March 2nd you left. March 8th banks informed Supreme Courts that you have left the country. On 15th April your suspension came for your passport. Mhm. revocation the suspension was 15th April 2016 and 24th April was the revocation you know the dates better than me okay fine so from 15 to 24 MEA says that because there was no reply from you they had to revoke it why

didn't you reply between after 15 when you got to know that your your passport getting suspended I replied to them I I don't remember but they revoked the passport I mean that's what matters because you were not replying to them. That's what their reply is. That's what they officially told you. That's what they have said it officially in public. I'm not aware of that. I I didn't go talk to them. I'm not I'm not I can only talk about what I could find online on through newspapers. So that's the only thing unfortunately I could talk

about. Sad thing in my case is a lot of people concoct things but it's fine. I mean ultimately the bottom line is the passport was revoked. Yeah. Yeah. So and then and remains revoked. So didn't you fight back? What is there for me to do to get the password? I have to claim my rights under the constitution of India that I have a constitutional right to a passport etc. Yeah. So fight like everyone else like the way you would go back and be like this is wrongfully done to me. So let me get my passport

back. I'll fight it. Uh I'll come back to the country. I'll abide by the law and I'll fight in the courts. In your view, how many fronts should somebody open up? How many battles should you open up and engage in? Just everything unlimited. I have enough and more to do, right? And I want to focus my legal battles. Remember they are not only time consuming reading volumes of legal papers is no fun and lawyer lawyer fees are expensive. So, one at a time. But don't you think it makes it worse for you because you didn't

come back to the country? They tag you as fugitive, fraud, and all of these are tags because you choose to not come back to the country. If I have a fair assurance of a fair trial and a dignified existence in India, you may be right but I don't. Would you be willing to return to country if you're assured fair time? If I am assured, absolutely I will I will think about it seriously. But you should also be aware that there are other people who the government of India is targeting for extradition from the UK back

to India. In whose case they have got judgment from the high court of appeal that Indian detention conditions are violative of article 3 of the constitution of the ECR I'm sorry and therefore they can't be sent back. The plea was basically the prolonged detention without trial for which we all know there are numerous examples. They just lock you up and throw away the key. That's not justice. But you were here extradicted as well, right? You lost the case. It's all right. I mean, I have illegal. They arrested you as well and then they left. They

they granted you bail, right? What happened? Normal part of extradition normal that's the procedure what happened with the extradition I think my stay in England is fully legitimate but you lost the case in UK high court right to the Indian authorities there is more than the particular case that you are referring to so there are proceedings ongoing proceedings in this country that's one of the legal battles I'm fighting that I told you about. But if you're assured a fair trial, what do you think is that assurance? What does it look like? What guarantees would you

need that you would ever think of considering? That's something for the lawyers to discuss. But if you would agree with me, the conduct and the track record of the CBI and ED in respect of other unfortunate people doesn't inspire too much confidence, does it? I mean, I can rattle off a whole bunch of names of people, right? See let's talk about I also tell you about the fact that in India sadly a business failure is compared or is is equivalent to a fraud. But there are numerous cases of Indian businessmen who have defaulted on loan

and they have still stayed in the country and have fought and they have not left the country and that's why people don't call them ch they look them in a bad eye because that's something which socially we are conditioned to look at in that way but they stayed there that's why they've not been called fugitives or chore okay and there are cases like there's so many cases like that fine call me a fugitive for not going to India post March. I didn't run away. I flew out of India on a pre-cheduled visit. Right. Fair enough.

I did not return for reasons that I consider are valid. So if you want to call me a fugitive, go ahead. But where's the chore coming from? Where is the chi? Because the agencies in the country, CBI, ED, all the courts, the highest court, they all have found misrepresentation of funds and they have cases against you and they've concluded their cases by saying that your financial transactions were not clean. There's no chy there. You took loan. your company, Kingfisher Airlines, took a loan to revive the company, but then you you took that money and offshored

that money into different accounts around the world. That's what the case is about. If I'm not mistaken, I think CBI in 2017, they concluded around 423 crores were found. Then ED said something around 3,000 cr had some problem with money laundering. So there were these these numbers I can find exact numbers and I can quote which I found out. No problem. But why like EDS said 3,547 cr was laundered in 2017. CBI alleged that 423 cr was from Kingfisher Airlines loan was siphoned off for unrelated expenses. Can you explain why that happened? Why these all

these agencies are against you and multiple courts are against you and forget this if you're calling India and everybody is a system it's a nexist they all are trying to make you a fraud multiple international courts Swiss Switzerland authorities UK high court one of the courts from UK they also found you guilty for misrepresentation of funds right and they've lost cases Swiss not co Swiss authorities what what about the Swiss authority they've also found that there were transactions authority have found nothing. The Swiss authority froze my children's accounts based on a request by the government

of India. They did not adjudicate on anything. The government of India wrote to all these foreign governments saying Vijay Malia and his family's property should be frozen. Right? Only the Swiss acted on it. The French acted on it. Fine. They were not stolen properties or acquired from any money due to uh due from Kingfisher Airlines to the banks. There is absolutely no evidence. The CBI and ED are well known to concoct, fabricate and present false evidence. That's fine. But they have to prove it. As I said, the norm is you are guil you are innocent

until you are proven guilty, not the other way around. Now, let me explain the 423 crores. In an airline, more than 50% of operating costs are in foreign currency. You lease planes, you pay in dollars. Okay? You import spares, you pay in dollars. You have aircraft checks and services you pay in dollars, right? So the money has to go out of India. You can concoct whatever you want and say that money sent out of India means siphoning money. But why are they calling unrelated expenses? If all of these were the expenses for these reasons, they

would be related expenses. But that is a question that the CBI must answer. The allegations are against me. I am refuting those allegations. I am saying all these allegations are complete nonsense. And how would you explain 3,547 crores which ED has alleged that's not sent out of India. That is the borrowing from the banks. But they claim it has been laundered. What is launder? If if I laundered it means what are you suggesting? I stole it. What is laundered? Laundered to me is trying to turn cash to check and check to cash. That's laundering. Right?

If they say I've laundered the money, what are they saying I did with that money? Did I steal it? Did I fund my lifestyle with it? What is the essence? What is the charge of laundering? Here's the basic case. Let me try to explain you what a common man in India understands about your case in very basics language. If I borrow 100 rupees from a bank, I use 50 rupees from that money to buy a property outside India and I only have 50 left and that 50 I spent in my business trying to make it

work. And then when the banks are asking me to get the money, I say I don't have any money. Mhm. Now banks are not saying that why did you burn the 50 rupees in making the business work. They are questioning why did you transfer this 50 rupees to buy something else outside. So that is the whole case and in your case numbers are outrageous. So where is any iota of evidence that I used even one rupee of kingfisher airlines funds to acquire overseas properties? There is no such allegation. So what are CBI and ED concluding

then what they have won cases in India. They've concluded certain things and that's why they're fighting on some grounds. Why would UK courts even entertain if there's no proof? Why would anybody okay entertain what Indian CBI authorities action against you or case against you if there's no proof? The job of the UK court is only to establish and determine whether there is a primma facy case to be sent to trial. Right. The UK court has not adjudicated and said you are either guilty or innocent. The job of a UK extradition judge is to say is

what CBI is saying fine is there a case to be tried in front of a judge. That's the limit. They have determined that. Now it is for the CBI and me to fight it out. Okay. In the court they provide their evidence. I will provide my evidence. Okay. So that's as far as the UK court is concerned. Got it. So it has just got gone to the trial. So absolutely. Okay. What is the allegation? I misrepresented the Kingfisher financials. Yeah. Right. To the IDBI. Yeah. I colluded with the senior management of the IDI to get

the loan. Right. And then I misuse the proceeds of that 900 cr loan. That is the three allegations. The allegation sub allegation about Formula 1 team sponsorship. I responded to you earlier. The Formula 1 team sent back 10 million pounds to King Fisher Airlines to help it. All right. They brought in Royal Challengers Bangalore as a cricket team. That was a sponsorship money paid right for the umpire's uniform where it said Fly King Fisher. It was a pure for advertising. Of course, the CBI says it was misuse of funds. Fair enough. Everybody's entitled to their

opinion. But when the case is tried before a judge, it is the judge who will decide who is right, who wrong, whether this tantamounts to siphoning or diversion or improper use in terms of the collusion, right? There is not an iota of proof. Not an iota of proof. I met chairman Agarwal twice and in two meetings along with four other executive directors of IDBI bank. Is it at all conceivable that I would be able to make some sort of corrupt backhanded arrangement with them? Absolutely not. But the loan was subsequently approved by the IDBI board.

if there was something so blatantly wrong in the sanction process because King Fisher didn't meet the norms, right? Kingfisher's financials were weak. Yes, I agree. But the the board of the IDBI bank would have would have found out and commented upon it themselves. They approved it because the CB so the CBI are making allegations all of which are fine. But there is an equally robust defense against these allegations. In the same case when it comes to IDBI and all the or the consortium of banks which gave you loan it is also said that there was

an independent agency from UK which put out a brand valuation of 4,100 crores. Mhm. on Kingfisher's brand but in reality the brand value was only 160 crores when later was audited by an independent valuer and that was the mismanagement and that was the collusion between you and the IDPI board and stuff that you sold them and you misrepresented the brand value which in reality was not the case. Okay. So let me tell you there was no UK independent agency. Grand thon Grand Thornton is a very very wellestablished accounting company hired by me not by anybody

else and the other company was brand finance. Both these companies gave a brand valuation right. I submitted the Grand Thon brand valuation report. Right. The bank took it. I had two recognized valuers submitted one report which they accepted. Now is that fraud on my part? If they didn't want it, they said, "This is not worth the paper it's written on, tear it up and throw it away." I would have done so. It's all very well in hindsight to construct a case with all sorts of frivolous allegations and if it's got to be in a court

of law, thrashed out, it will be. But how is Supreme Court favoring all of these then? Because none of my cases in the Supreme Court. Supreme Court ordered you to disclose all your assets on 21st April 2016. Right. July. And they also asked you to pay bank a substantial amount to show your commitment that you're ready to pay everything because you kept saying that you were ready to pay. Mhm. Right. Did you do that? I made all the disclosures under oath on behalf of myself and my entire family including my children. Now what's the case

now? Where is this heading in your words? Explain me. Okay, forget all of these things. We'll come back to what happened on 25th February which you are recently which recently you did filing a petition to Karnataka court. Yeah. So let them gives the statement of account. Yeah. So we will come to the least. But in your words, in simple words, summarize me, give me a summary of series of events. What exactly happened and why are you in trouble? If I could just ask you to do it in like next 4 5 minutes. You left the

country. You didn't intend to leave the country. You were just you just left because there was a pres-scheduled meeting. Then after a month you get to know that you have been suspended. Your passport has been suspended. 8 n days later it gets revoked and since then you're stuck here. Mhm. In middle of it you get the extradition process gets started. Two times you get arrested but you grant you have been granted bail. The case gets to trial. Now CBI, ED, the government in India, everybody finds you guilty people. Nobody found me guilty. I mean that's

what they they're calling it, right? They're giving you names. Okay. Everybody has given you a tag of let's just not use the word guilty. CBI hasn't taken place of guilt doesn't arise. Yeah. So CBI, ED, multiple courts, the government, people of India, everybody calls you a fugitive, fraud, chore. Mhm. bunch of different things, anchors, news, media, everybody calls you that, right? And you have been publicly publicly on through your Twitter on multiple occasions. You have been saying that hey, I want to pay the money. I want to pay the money. I really want banks to

listen to me. And you have been very clear about it. There have been multiple attempts from your side. And again and again authorities commenting that though there has been an attempt from your side but the effectiveness of it needs to be questioned. The seriousness of it needs to be questioned. Right? This is what the case is. But in all in all in summary people call you chore. People call you fugitive. People call you fraud. Now explain me in summary what is your side of story. We've gone through the whole thing but I want to understand

just in short brief the way I explained what is what is the root cause for all this money there is no other criminal allegation against me it's all about money right I showed you the debt recovery certificate amount 6203 crores I've shown you the ministry of finance report 14,000 100 recovered. The question to be determined now is has the money been recovered or not? Once the money has been fully recovered including interest, right? The root cause is taken care of. No, the root cause is intention. Sorry, the root cause is intention. Root cause is not

money and recovery of the money. It started like that. The root cause of your case is intention. You had the money and you still didn't pay. That is what we're fighting. That is what everybody thinks that you that's why if I answer the question, what was the share values then and what are they at the time of recovery? You'll get your answer. The share value went up tremendously. Therefore, they could recover two and a half times the debt. Back in 2016, the values of all the securities were barely would cover the debt recovery certificates. So

there was a huge appreciation in the value of my shares held. So it's fine. The root cause and cause or lost to public to the common man Indian taxpayer is the money which has been more than recovered. Right? Fine. I'm ready to face trial for intention. So if they want to convict me for bad intention, I'll fight it. Win or lose, I'll fight it. But you have a problem with they calling you chore because you've repaid the money. Yeah, I'm probably the only chore who is being called chore after repaying two and a half times.

But it's okay. I mean it's part of life. You also filed a petition in Karnataka High Court, right? What's happening there? I don't know. That petition as I told you was simply to direct the blank banks to provide a statement of account which once again I find exceptionally strange. I mean this probably the only example globally where banks do not render a statement of account. But if you say that you've recovered everything and if bank provide you the statement would you be open for an independent audit? Of course, anytime I'm open for it now on

all your financial transactions. No problem. There's nothing to be hide. Zero. Nothing. Please, anybody can help me. Nothing. Then if according to you the case is this clean okay and the authorities are questioning it the media is questioning it. Do you think you flying out of India just made your case worse? Maybe it did but I flew out on a pre-arranged commitment with no uh court directive as you seem to suggest that I must be there. it. I went to Geneva for a meeting and then you know the media fur that broke out and the

environment was too hot and too hostile and certainly not conducive for an immediate return. Plus, I needed to sell some securities to overseas business partners in order to generate more money to pay these banks, which I've been trying to sort of repay since 2016. Maybe not in the quantum that finally has resulted. I mean, the banks have got lucky, isn't it? Getting 4,100 crores because of the appreciation of my shares. 14,000. If I don't want to say I don't want to comment on others. I might as well just focus on my own business. It's not

fair. I'm not the type of person who comments about other people. Do you think people would have still calling you like people would still call you fraud if I have done whatever I could do? If you would have stayed in India and cooperated with banks, sir, people would not call you for fine. So people are abusing me. Maybe we'll continue to abuse me. There's nothing I can do about it. That's why I kept quiet for 9 years. Is there any proof where you requested banks that I want to settle way before all of this started?

Of course, there is proof. Can you give me? Sure. It's part of Supreme Court record. How do we access it? I ask my lawyers to give you a copy. No problem at all. Easily done. Before 2016. Yes. Absolutely. How do you want to be remembered? How do you want Vijay Malia to be remembered? For hopefully for the good things that I might have done. Certainly not for being a jaw. Perfect. All right. Okay. Thank you for doing this. You're welcome. Thank you so much for walking us through every little detail of your case, your life,

and what's going on. I just hope that whichever party is right wins and people see it the way you want to deliver it and people see through every little thing which they must have fed in a bad way or wrong way. I don't know which side they will believe. I don't know which side media will believe. I don't know which side the authorities will believe in, but I hope they do the right thing. So, thank you so much for walking us through every little thing. Good. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much

for watching this episode till the end. I take these kind of episodes with utmost responsibility. I'll see you the next time. Until then, keep figuring out. [Music]