|  When Tata, Ambani, Mittal and Birla are in, can Mallya be left behind? The Beer Baron Vijay Mallya now enters the retail sector in his usual glamorous style through a joint venture between his UB Holding and the Prestige Group which will have 45% share in the new company UB City- The Collection.
The venture marks the entry of Louis Vuitton of LVMH in South India with its first store here. Other brands signed up include Gucci, Mont Blanc, Fendi, Kimaya, Rolex and Omega.
The maverick tycoon, known at times as Richard Branson of India has been on big ticket shopping spree during the last couple of years. Last year he announced his entry in the wine market by buying Bouvet Ladubay, a French winery from Loire Valley after his offer to by Taittinger was spurned.
He went ahead and bought one of the oldest Scotch making companies, White and Mackay instead, for a royal sum of £595 million. Recently, he also acquired majority shares in a Formula 1 team.
The King of good time and a Fisher for exciting business deals, he bought Deccan Airlines, apparently within one week after deciding to buy it, dovetailing its strengths with the 2-year old Kingfisher airlines which is flying higher and higher from day one.
The Venetian-style building will include a 250-room JW Marriot hotel, service apartments and office space which has already been leased to prestigious corporates. The luxury mall, named after his late father, located at 1 Vittal Mallya Road is expected to open in early 2008.
It will be an iconic landmark of Bangalore, like the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. The estimated cost of the project is Rs. 3 Billion ($76 million). It will be an opportunity to tap high net worth individuals (HNI) unlike other projects targeted at the middle class consumers.
Mallya is entering a retail market where consumer spending is set to quadruple by 2025 to 1.5 trillion dollars, according to McKinsey. India has the highest number of billionaires in Asia, according to Forbes magazine. About 1.6 million Indian households earn more than 100,000 dollars a year, making them all potential customers, a sizeable proportion lives in Bangalore.
The Indian luxury market is estimated to be worth about two billion dollars and is growing at around 20 percent a year, according to FICCI. 'An environment has now been created for consumption of high-end luxury goods and services', says UB Global CEO Shashikanth.
What is next on Mallya's wish list? Will it be hotels or land and infrastructure development, two of the most lucrative areas today? Check out these columns for an update. |
