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

36:48And 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 a couple of exceptions where I hired people from extremely well-known organizations like major consultancy firms so on and so forth but beyond that largely it was all internal promotion compare 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 breweries it was the entire approach for instance mine was a decentralized accountability led approach okay i would have monthly operating review meetings called mor's for each line of business.

37:47Okay. 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. When opportunities came along, 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. I had a lot of free time, as I will tell you as we proceed, because of this decentralization and this whole new management culture that I had introduced in the UB group.

38:59And this was between, let's say, 1983 and 1986, 87. That is why I was able to then acquire the Berger Paints Global Business based here in the UK and actually become a non-resident Indian. In 86? 88. Okay. 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 for tax and exchange control purposes. And the reason, and of course that obviously meant that I couldn't spend more than 180 days in India. Well, the luxury of spending 180 days out of India, running this new opportunity in international business. Pains business. I was able to do it only because of the decentralized management structure implemented in India.

40:03So both the foreign businesses and the Indian businesses ran very well. give me differences and similarities between Vittal Malia and Vijay Malia well Vittal Malia has thought hundred times about spending money Vijay Malia probably thought twice you know I guess it's age it's aspiration it's 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… 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.

41:16I 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 like 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 becomes headlines? I never looked for headlines.

42:09I never ever looked for headlines. The headlines were created around me by the media. You know, let's take the case of flamboyance. 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 flamboyance. 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. Ramaprasad Birla. Who was the chairman of Reliance? Dhirubhai Ambani.

43:07Who was the chairman of the Birla Group? Mr. BK Birla.

43:16I 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 passions of young people. Like? I enjoyed a good car. I enjoyed my drinks. I enjoyed parties. I enjoyed music. I enjoyed sport.

43:58Not all of my father's contemporaries, who suddenly became my contemporaries in business, lived that way. They were more conservative, more at home, more domestic, consistent with their own age. so suddenly the media decided this guy, chairman of UB group is flamboyant I was termed flamboyant only because I did what every other youngster aspired to do 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 didn't spend anybody else's money. I spent my own money. I lived my life the way I wanted to live my life.

44:51If I look back, I've got millions of miles of corporate experience under my belt, starting off at a very young age.

45:04And I hope people appreciate the more positive contributions that I have made, rather than the persistently negative narrative that has overtaken and overshadowed effectively our whole career. I don't think I ever used that word flamboyant. 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, absolutely 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?

45:55Today you can. But go back to 1985-86, 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. Look, I like good cars. I raced cars. I've been racing cars since I was a teenager. Okay. I brought a Formula One car into India to race. Okay. When my father was still alive. In fact, when I won the race at Sholabharam, okay near then madras now chennai i called him from the race track 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 tech 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 worked really hard see this is very okay this is very like a media answer okay um 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 your reaction the moment people would write it you were like ignore it of course i would ignore it what have i done for the last nine years but at that time you were in peak let me tell you something being referred to as flamboyant, some people may take it as a compliment.

47:50But 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.

48:18Yeah, 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 see the pattern of their reportage on me, okay, I mean, they kept on writing things, which really, I thought, these guys don't have anything better to do. Vijay Malaya has done a party Vijay Malaya is hosting a New York party at Kingfisher Villa Vijay Malaya 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 article in one of the large newspapers in India.

49:16So I called the owner. I said, how could you possibly publish something like this without checking the facts? Kya tha? Vijay, sorry, your name sells. So they created this animal called Vijay Malaya whose name started selling so they could they could 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

50:10I was much maligned, much complimented, but effectively I was my own brand ambassador. Take the case of one much talked about phrase, king of good times. 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 Kingfisher Bear that was developed. It says, the King of Good Times. the personality of Kingfisher Bear was the king of good times. Ulta Media started calling me the king of good times. So tell me, me being the king of good times will not help sell the bear. But it did. Because the bear itself was the genuine king of good times.

51:22And the personality that I gave Kingfisher, promoting sport, promoting fashion, promoting music, sponsoring motor racing. So all the stuff that's exciting to youngsters, that represented the personality of the Kingfisher brand. That's why Kingfisher was such a success. But talk to me about building of Kingfisher. 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 kingfisher no i was brand ambassador and i have done it not only for kingfisher but take the case of our spirits business I actually came on national television with an ad encouraging people not to drink and drive.

52:22I did it myself. I didn't get some film star to do it. I did it myself. So becoming a personal brand was a strategy then? Of course it was. So then why does it bother you that you were tagged as like the king of good times? Never bothered me. That's what I'm saying. but I am not the person who labeled myself as king of good times. You curated. It so happened that the media started calling me the king of good times. Fine. Because certainly you curated this. 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? Young people are entitled to aspirations.

53:06Young people are entitled to improve lifestyles. young people are entitled to treat themselves yeah but that doesn't mean I went around the whole world saying well you know what I am 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 Vishay the number one selling beer that's it how did that happen What happened along the way is irrelevant. How did this happen? Kingfisher beer, how did it become number one? Tell me story of Kingfisher. Well, when I took over this business, Golden Eagle or Mohan Mekin Breweries was the largest beer company in India.

53:55Today, United Breweries Limited controls almost 52 % of the beer market in India. Kingfisher is, I mean, not very many product categories that can lay claim to 52 % national market share. But yeah, Kingfisher is by far the number one selling brand. That's because, yes, I curated 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 McDowell number one. I mean, once again, this whole golden moments, McDowell moments, right? It was a little more sober than the Kingfisher ads because the target demographic was different.

54:50But it's the largest selling whiskey in the world today. McDowell number one. All these brands I created. tell me one turning point which just made everything good for you in Kingfisher Kingfisher beer specifically it's a sustained effort but when was the first time you thought okay now it will work because it was always working from day one yeah when I relaunched it new packaging right make it more appealing on the shelf 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.

55:49Same thing with McDowell No. 1 whiskey. Nothing's overnight. National brands are not built overnight. there wasn't one moment that you could 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 bier will work because it was a little expensive than other one we had brands such as ub royal flying horse we had jubilee and 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, Kingfisher, I mean, you take notice, right? So that's the platform I built on.

56:40All right. Similarly, I said, I mean, you take the case of McDowell number one, right? It was targeted at a slightly higher demographic, but it went along with more sophisticated merchandising and stuff like that which augured 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 Kingfisher, Bior and McDowell's? Or everything we just painted red and it worked out for you? No, no. There's nothing red about McDowell. It was all black and gold.

57:35The only one around that's red is Kingfisher. No, I think more than challenges, I look at opportunities. I mean, you know, 2005 I bought Showalless, 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 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 you know i mean yeah she has 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 kingfisher and then at one point other brands as well would work out really well which it did by buying a paint business like this is so bizarre the paint british paints in india okay which is now called burja pants 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.

59:20During my tenure as chairman of British Paints India, I learned something about the paint business. Right now.

59:30what 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 Berger Paints 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 Berger Paints. So when Hex Group decided to sell their global Berger Paints headquartered in England operating in the Caribbean operating in Africa, in Asia, true multinational company. I went to them and put together a 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.

1:00:43That was back, as I said, 1988. Okay, so from being an Indian-centric 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 was very focused on making a hefty profit out of it too, which I successfully did. So I bought it in a leveraged buyout.

1:01:28And 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. 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.

1:02:25That's on a lighter vein. But yeah, I mean, 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 that's what it's all about. I mean, I got experience of doing IPOs in three different countries across the globe. That was an invaluable experience. Do you regret selling it? Because today, Berger is, I think, 60, 70 ,000 crore big business. That's only one Berger in India. I own the global Berger all over the world, including India. I sold Berger paints in India to Redingras. So do you regret selling it? Who did a great job with it.

1:03:15God bless them. They did a super job with it. But if it was doing so good, why did you sell it then? Well, it was bought by the Malaysians okay and they came with an offer I couldn't refuse they offered me some two and a half times the coated shepherds 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 your relationship with your mother my mom brought me up I used to live with her in Calcutta alone since 64, 65. And yeah, so she's stood by me like a rock. She's a very well-educated lady. And yeah, I mean, she's been living in England now for 30 plus years.

1:04:12But yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, I wanted to buy a yacht. I wanted to buy a plane and stuff 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 or no but why did you say that 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 are you spending money or whatever.

1:04:59I 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. Tell me one lesson you learned from your mom. oh i've learned many lessons from my mom don't waste time in life arguing

1:05:27it'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.

1:06:17Do you miss him? 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 Chor or Magoda. 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.

1:07:07But 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. When did you decide that you want to start a Kingfisher Airlines? 2002, 2003. And you just, okay, so here's the story. hear me out what i have 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 the damania brothers from bombay who previously had damania airlines came and made a presentation to my cfo Ravi Narengeri saying that time is ripe to start an airline now.

1:08:30Okay. Ravi Narengeri 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 born.

1:08:58And then you didn't take anyone in confidence, you were just, hey, out of nowhere, I think we are an 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 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 this whole business of launch on son's birthday as a birthday gift and all is complete baloney alright 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 okay once again media narratives are best ignored a full-blown 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 a lot of narrative about kingfisher airlines a lot of narrative about mismanagement a lot of narrative about the deccan acquisition all sorts of things let's pick one by one what was the first vision of kingfisher 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 in 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

1:11:16but i was watching one documentary about you and i think the person who you got to lead was alex yeah wilcox yeah so alex said that you convinced him that you want to build a low-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 low cost carrier

1:11:55that 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

1:12:08kingfisher airline started off as a single class airline low cost but with a difference it had in-flight entertainment and it offered meals everything else that's applicable to a low-cost airline was applied to kingfisher as well Commonality of fleet, commonality of training, the whole lot. I mean, there's a whole set of rules. What is a low-cost 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 low-cost attributes. Okay? The only product plus was in-flight entertainment for the first time ever in India and good food.

1:13:04So to me, the logic from my marketing experience was Indians love entertainment. Therefore, the in-flight entertainment system and Indians love food. So good food. Right. And then, of course, service quality, whether you're low cost or full service, 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 Kingfisher first, which is basically the business class. Why? Why? Because the market demanded that on certain routes, right? There are certain people who would not fly Kingfisher because we didn't have a front cabin or a business class who would always fly jet, okay?

1:14:03Because jet had a two-class, a business class and an economy class, right? And now, just to prove my point, indigo is often referred to as the most successful low-cost carrier in the world and certainly the largest low-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 but 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 but 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.

1:15:22Now, 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 aerostuses 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 three more things this is one secondly the food was second to none right with the quality of the seats themselves the recline and all the rest of it what they call the seat pitch it's a second to none so there was so many little attributes we called customers not passengers but gas many airlines have copied us since but there were the little little things that made a difference.

1:16:39I was very focused on the service delivery excellence of Kingfisher. You can go further because you don't know this. You can't ask me the questions. Let me tell you. In the first one year, the airport manager at every single airport in India had to send me on my personal mobile and SMS with the flight number, the scheduled 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 Kingfisher of that day. I used to monitor personally the on-time performance. You were so detailed focus. You were so...

1:17:27Because the service industry, the airline industry requires focus, requires detailed focus. so agreed then it worked in your favor till 2008 what happened then simple you've ever heard of lehman 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 pranap mukhaji then finance minister of india having grown up in calcutta i speak fairly decent bengali and i said pranap da our problem is king fisher airlines get downsize which means i have to downsize this airline i have to cut the number of aircraft i have to lay off employees 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 it's not like work men 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 Kingfisher at that time and yes the banks did support all right now what happened then lot is 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 at Ekon which everybody says was a big mistake in 137 million dollars 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 air decon was famous for advertising and promoting one rupee tickets yeah clearly you could never ever sustain any airline business selling tickets for one rupee.

1:20:53Okay. It was a bait. 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 Kingfisher was also a part.

1:21:18So at that time, we looked at it. Air Deccan was also Bangalore-based. It had the same Airbus aircraft. It had the same train pilots as Kingfisher. So there was a lot of engineering compatibility.

1:21:40Plus scale and size with a merger of Kingfisher and Deccan. eliminate the disruptor and consolidate the industry and Kingfish Airlines. That was the logic of buying Deccan. Not this much touted logic of I was desperate to fly overseas. I needed to get past that five-year herd. 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 low 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 five-year window which you wanted which you wanted to bounce right 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 five years before getting the license to operate air and you didn't have that and that's why you bought Air Deccan so that you could start flying overseas and you paid an absurd amount of price for it that's what people say so who are the people that you're quoting?

1:23:30everybody like all the things that I've read all the media like media right? Yeah, like 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. And at least from the ones who I really respect. 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.

1:24:17I referred a little earlier to the installation of a front cabin of business class, which we called Kingfisher 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 deccan 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 Deccan also played a part in that so Kingfisher's sad failure subsequently had nothing to do with Deccan okay nothing to do with how much we paid for Deccan right got it those were totally separate set of reasons right but here's the reasons here's a question 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 Deccan 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.

1:26:04Business decision. Brilliant. Do you think then the wrong decision was to rebrand it to Kingfisher Red? Because you can't start operating one Deccan and one Kingfisher. So we just called it Kingfisher Red. I mean rebranding 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 multi-brand strategy is no rocket science yeah but then the philosophy of air deacon was low cost and in kingfisher red so kingfisher stood for premium kingfisher red stood for low cost It was differentiated Kingfisher I and Kingfisher Red. Okay. Right? You tell me something.

1:26:51What's the difference between Coke Zero and Diet 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 Kingfisher I and Kingfisher Red? You know, 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 kingfisher 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 low cost carrier didn't you i began by saying that kingfisher started off with all the attributes of a low cost carrier which is single class standard fleet etc etc etc but I said the only differentiator was in flat entertainment and food 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 low cost carrier here in Europe alright do they starve you or do they feed you but you have to pay for it all of them?

1:28:28I don't know, a few of them, the ones I've flown so there are exceptions but that was the business like that's what everybody talks about 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 in-flight entertainment in a low-cost carrier where people don't care about it. Wait. Our belief was Indians love food and love entertainment. That was for Kingfisher first. But not for Kingfisher Red. Kingfisher Red stands for low-cost carrier.

1:29:10Why? An in-flight entertainment system doesn't cost you money to operate every day. But still costs 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 after acquiring Deccan giving all the services of a full service carrier in a low cost carrier the full service carrier part of it was very distinct from the so called low cost carrier at the end of the day however you may refer to these business models 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 low-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 so you were competing with low-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 flight.

1:30:49Was it true? That's what the critics say. They are all aviation experts. I have nothing to say. So where was the problem? And 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 made a lot of political hay out of this. When I used to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when I used to write to the civil aviation ministers, ministers of finance,

1:31:27the 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. The state governments levied an ad valorem 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 turbine fuel declared good status so that it attracts central sales tax and not this punitive ad valorem state sales tax, right?

1:32:46Because the states are making windfall profits. Anyway, that the government did not do. Okay. 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 said that only six months after Kingfush Island shot, right, that they permitted Etihad to invest in jet. i had already reached agreement with the ceo of etihad in geneva for them to invest in kingfisher 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 is the economy, the circumstances, the government policy then existing, all conspired to create a perfect storm through which Kingfisher could not survive.

1:33:59I mean, that's the 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 kingfisher could potentially have been today but sadly not all businesses work out some times you win sometimes you lose while this like 2008 turmoil happened and you had your own challenges with kingfisher but there were good things in your life which are happening as well one of them being sports so you you bought IPL team RCB Rawal 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, about communicating marketing ethos via sporting events, via music events, and various other forms that would be attractive to youngsters.

1:35:56I just acquired Shaw Wallace, 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 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. and of course he was working through 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?

1:37:20And I got greedy. I wanted one for Kingfisher 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 Ambani's got it. Yeah. 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.

1:38:22And 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 Malaya 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 business driven. That's why it was called Royal Challengers. But did it help after that? Massively. 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 Lalit and which is true now that the revenues the media revenues are so high the payment of the franchise fee over 10 years is over so now there's a significant net profit for every franchise 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 dollars is what i bid and that time it would be like six seven hundred crores or more than yeah i think but but lalith was clever he everything was denominated in dollars the bid price was okay so i think 112 million which of course people balked 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 if I'm not wrong, you got it for like 20 lakh something.

1:40:29Correct. Why did you pick Virat at such a young age? Well, you know, obviously there was the young creators and it was draw by lots. Right. And finally I got lucky. So I got to pick and I immediately went for Virat. But, you know, I mean, I looked just, I think, shortly before the actual selection process, they were playing the Under-19 World Cup. And I was very impressed. So I picked him. And, you know, it's wonderful. 18 years later, he's still there. They were just his performance. Absolutely. Were you able 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 one of the greatest Indian cricketers ever.

1:41:27If 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, Jaspreet Bumrah. Yeah. If dreams could come true, Surya Kumar Yadav

1:41:51Risha Pant K.L. 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 win the trophy this year? The RCB lineup is pretty balanced top class batting lineup a much improved bowling lineup I haven't seen Bhuvaneshwar Kumar play in RCP colors yet but you know he's a top class bowler but as a unit I can say it's a pretty balanced unit and now it all depends on on-field performance you know this year the captain rajat he's from my city he's from my neighborhood like like he was literally like two houses away from my house rajat parted out 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 rajat 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 rcb was conceived we have had a comprehensive program of fan engagement okay all right we've had event I mean the the IPL window is two months but we have had activation program stretching over all 12 months to keep the RCB fans engaged so it is once again a clear-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 yeah remember yeah when was this conceived you don't know Well, let me tell you.

1:44:301996 World Cup of Cricket, 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 in 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 one also a marketing stint for kingfisher 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 for many years and the job of the federation was basically to promote motorsports in India.

1:45:52Now, for anybody who is into motor racing, the absolute pinnacle of motorsport in the world is Formula One. What is Formula One all around? The image of Formula One, big box, glamour, 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.

1:46:55Why did you keep Force 1? 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 tricolor on the car. Of course, I also used the platform to advertise my brands. Yeah. Okay, including Royal Challenge, Whiskey, White and Mackay, which we owned at that time, Kingfisher, then the airline. So the car, delivery of the car and all the merchandise around Formula One 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.

1:47:48But you invested quite a lot of money on it, right? Sure I did. I mean, Formula 1 is not cheap. Do you think that was a bad decision? No. In hindsight, I wouldn't do anything different. Why not? 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 Kingfisher money for Formula 1. And nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about that. Have you spoken about it before and still people don't? 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.

1:48:28But then you sold Force One. Yes, Force One became Racing Point. Yes, you sold it to Lawrence Troll, right? It's Aston Martin Formula 1. Yeah. Why did you sell it to Lawrence? 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 move on in life. But I had 10 years of the Indian flag on the Formula One grid. Talking about another marketing stint, because there was cricket, there was Formula One, there was Kingfisher calendar.

1:49:09it was so highly talked about what was the story behind kingfisher calendar atul kaz baker came to me and said fine let's you know there's a pirelli calendar why can't we create a similar property for kingfisher absolutely and so we said fine we'll have the kingfisher swimsuit calendar we couldn't go sort of kind of all the way that pirelli might have been able to, given the social considerations in India and so on and so forth. But I think we produced a product that everybody demanded. I mean, even today, I get SMSs from people who ask my calendar. So it was highly sought after. And once again, we had events around it.

1:49:55We had the national hunt for the Kingfisher girl. That was national. So we broad-based it. And we chose models through a national hunt. And then, of course, we'd have events 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 Padukone whether it was Katrina Kaif I mean we had all the heroines and the stars on the calendar in their younger days but they were not stars back then we picked well we picked the right talent Did you also help them after the calendar or it was just the engagement was only to them?

1:51:03They 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 McDowell marketing campaigns, right? Okay.

1:51:23Talking about fast cars, I've always been passionate about cars.

1:51:30And 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 Maybach. That was it. That was all I possessed. But you have one of the largest car collections of vintage cars and stuff. Now we're talking about vintage cars, which is a totally different ballgame. because of our nationwide presence on the ground i told my people look for vintage cars because they were hugely neglected

1:52:17many 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 Rolls Royce for 50 ,000 rupees, with a tree growing through it in somebody's backyard, deep in Talangana. 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.

1:53:15Of course, you can't export them because that's the government of India policy. So they are in India. 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. In India, I had, I think it was 1931 PS Arrow which is a fantastic American car. and which I took to Singapore. I entered Singapore to Malaysia rally and won it. And they probably flew back on an air and air flight with a big trophy in my hand. That was one of my favorite cars. I have a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that was supposedly owned by the Nizam of Hyderabad, with a very unique body on it.

1:54:12that's a special car i have i think a 1903 darac which looks more like a horse-drawn carriage it's french with a single cylinder engine still runs so yeah these were some of the unique ones which were personal favorites let's put it that way what's the most ridiculously expensive thing you've 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 age no i mean look i have a family trust set up by my father that you know has acquired various properties in different parts the world the media said i had over 20 properties probably one in each country i went to which is once again a 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 owned through Gizmo which is a holding company yeah and then when I had 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 of the bangalore it started off as a joke okay what's 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 selfish and say no I'm not moving so in a joking way I said to Irfan Razak of Prestige very dear friend of mine, top man.

1:57:11I said, Irfan, why? If you lift this building and put it on top of the tower you want to build, I'll agree. He said, okay, that's what we'll deliver. That's what they did. Wow. What is there inside the house? I always wonder every time I go to Bangalore. It's unfinished. It's unfinished because it's embroiled in this UBHL liquidation controversy right now but you know given that 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 my father was a businessman and i really i'm 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.

1:59:10Right? Now, whether my dad was around or not would not change what has been attempted and what has been done. Till now, the government officially recognizing and admitting that 14 ,100 clothes 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 which was pranav mccarthy 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.

2:00:02Just to set the record straight. State Bank of India was a lender to Deccan. When Kingfisher and Deccan merged, State Bank of India became a lender to Kingfisher Alliance. But it started with Deccan. So like that, there were a group of banks from whom Kingfisher had borrowed money. A group of banks from whom Deccan had borrowed money. And then they got combined into one entity when Deccan and Kingfisher merged. Right. Yes, there were times when 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 our financial needs, appraise them correctly through State Bank of India capital markets, and then sanction loans, even though the credit worthiness of Kingfisher Alliance may have been short of norms.

2:01:10To 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 Kingfisher Alliance. You're talking to me about allegations of siphoning. You're talking to me about allegations of misusing Kingfisher Airlines funds for my lifestyle for Formula One. Nobody ever talks about the 3 ,000 crores I infused in cash into Kingfisher Airlines to keep it afloat. My good friend and, you know, probably the most successful lady entrepreneur I've known, she's like a sister to me, Kiran Mazumdar, has often said publicly that Vijay put everything on the line for Kingfisher.

2:01:58I 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 Kingfisher Airlines because you believed in the vision but at the time when you asked loans the company was not doing that great correct but you still got loan from the consortium of 17 banks 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 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.

2:02:52If anybody had bad intentions, if anybody had intentions to divert money, siphon money, steal money, would anybody put themselves on a line with the personal guarantee? Think about it. So all this narrative of chore, chore can give its personal guarantee. that is why I say in the last nine 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 Sambit 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 Manmohan Singh, trying to establish a nexus between me and the Prime Minister and alleging some sort of wrongdoing by the then Congress Prime Minister.

2:04:04I 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? So, I'm quoting just pure research. Okay. 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 kingfisher as collateral and gave you the loan one of the collaterals one of the collateral what were the other collateral several other stocks shares property so stocks and shares property and stock and shares which which is again quoted, at that time, were at the price of 38, 39.

2:05:18But banks got it at 68, 69. You're talking about Kingfisher Airlines 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. One minute. They have sold assets and realized 14 ,100 crores. Yeah. A large part of which were my shares. So you have only focused on brand value. You've forgotten about the shares. I never suggested, wait a minute, I never suggested that the brand value would generate 14 ,000 crores. My shares that were pledged did. So there's your answer to all this narrative.

2:06:07So you're saying that... I'm not saying, it's fact. No, so the facts are, which you are quoting, is they took shares of King Vischer Airlines at the double price because they were also getting shares of UB. That's why there was some kind of negotiation which was played on. No, no. It's a multiple basket of securities. But still, why would a bank pay twice the share price? Look, nobody dreams up a share value. Okay. there 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 Kingfisher's shares in the airline itself needed to be pledged to the banks.

2:06:58But that was 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 hullabaloo 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 lent the money they should answer the question I'm the receiver first of all let me clarify here when you keep saying you borrowed I never borrowed one naya paisa Vijay Malaya has never borrowed a single rupee from anybody ever it was Kingfisher Airlines the running company that borrowed I was a guarantor there's a big difference and then the money came in but you still Kingfisher Airlines was still bleeding whatever the case may be I also put three thousand you put in three thousand crores you put in everything and you try 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 started asking you for advance money and that shaked you a little bit more well yeah the working capital cycle got disrupted natural then there was another series of event that kingfisher airlines was not able to pay the airport fees, the landing charges.

2:08:59Listen, 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 to something. If there's a cash shortage, okay, it's across the board. So across the board, then there were catering companies which were affected. There was no food. 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 is not going to work you were still pushing you know i was pushing i was pushing in the hope that the foreign investment that i had already negotiated was going to fructify which i had already agreed right with james hogan but the permission never came it was sad and i guess my misfortune that six months after kingfisher collapsed in october 2012 that the same etihad was granted permission to invest in jenavis 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 that the money will come in but they were not paid the staff was not paid sadly no right but there's again a statement that your international employees were getting paid Indian employees were not 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 here 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, right?

2:11:16Which 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 Kingfisher employees?

2:11:47The company in India had no money. There was UB's money of 260 crores in the bank, with the bank under the control of the government of Karnataka. we applied officially and formally to the i court please release the 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 kingfisher 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 a 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 well-to-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.

2:14:12But 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, that was the culmination of a long-standing dispute, marital dispute. It was convenient to blame it on Kingfisher Airlines and non-payment of salaries. Once again, when people are under stress and under unpleasant circumstances, I don't want to comment on it in an unsavory way.

2:15:07It would not be right on my part. I mean, my sympathies are with the family that, you know, lost one of their kin. But I can tell you that we investigated the matter. And, okay, sadly, the tragedy did happen. and yes, equally sadly that family had not been paid their salary. If you'd like to blame it on me fine, I'll take the blame. As I said, I'm not afraid of taking blame where blame is due. I can face up to reality and truth. Did you feel like you should have said sorry to employees? Because you were not able to. letters of course I did yeah but I didn't copy the media I wrote a letter of condolence but I didn't copy the media

2:16:10you know here was what pissed people off that in your private life you were enjoying you were buying the Tipu Sultan sword you were buying cars in the UK the value of a Tipu Sultan sword would not have paid salaries the two mercedes-benz 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 at the breweries, MCF, everybody. Really. That would have been very fair, isn't it?

2:17:05And behave whether, 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 Michelle 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 Malia ka chodi Vijay Malia ka fraud everything is Vijay Malia 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.

2:18:35Nobody even refers to it. Kingfisher Airlines, Malia Thoko Salehko. 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 Vijay Amalia I want to see you eating jail food Vijay Amalia I want to see you in jail clothes etc etc started from there everybody had to jump on the bandwagon

2:19:32I think in the same time because we are talking about events somebody mentioned that you took out 35 million euros and invested in buying properties in France rubbish with some dummy company called I think Gizmo Holding or something like that tell me if I had siphoned Kingfisher Airlines money to such an extent as people suggest how would the LN run

2:20:08on the bank's own admission on the debt recovery tribunal's own admission 4 ,999 crores was the debt right rest is all interest the suggestions are that I have stolen or misused most of that or all of it how would the airline fly

2:20:34if all the money borrowed from the banks Vijay Mali are pocketed how would the airline fly

2:20:45see 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 later in 2011 the union minister of the same government objection like he started they started objecting that you were not paying even taxes, 150 crore was pending and it started putting you in the public eye. They were arrears. They were arrears. Nobody is disputing that. But compare my arrears with Air India's arrears.

2:21:44Air India's arrears 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 their 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 Kingfisher 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 you know once again unproductive things 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 am not in any case since 1988 I've been going to India for less than 180 days in a year.

2:22:58All 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. For sure, I will. My goodness, it will be headlines of every single newspaper. Okay, so 2012, the airline got suspended. Non-payment of multiple things, working capital, cash flow, everything got really, really bad for you. 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?

2:23:43What happened? I'm asking you, what happened? What happened? Did everybody forgot? Did everybody, like they were not bothered about kingfisher airlines or what the cases were going on of course everything was going on nothing stopped 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 the banks call a willful defaulter of somebody who has the money but won't pay yeah that's called a willful defaulter 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.

2:24:47It was always my intention to settle. Never did I say I am 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.

2:25:05They didn't want your 5 ,000 crore because they were expecting it to go up. Like the sale of your assets would be much higher than whatever. Is that? 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 2012 to 2015? They got the records of the Supreme Court of India. Proof. What better proof than the records of the Supreme Court of India? Public documents.

2:25:43so 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 18 december 2015 right correct what happened in that party nothing party that normal party that i had 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 Kingfisher 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.

2:26:49My livelihood is dependent on this. And then I see the promoter of my company spending millions of dollars or Enrique Iglesias to perform for his birthday party I would get enraged I want to as an employee at that point if I'm not if I've not gotten paid I don't understand that there are 50 businesses that you've built I understand only one thing that the promoter of my company is enjoying on my expense I would agree with everything that you said except your last at my expense the promoter I'm talking like a common person that's what I'm asking fair enough The common person didn't know that upon objection by the same banks, the Karnataka High Court declined to agree to drawing readily available cash to pay the salaries.

2:27:43Right. Okay, I agree with you. The suffering employee would have also said, the man has United Breweries, United Spirits, and 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? 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 the media. And I paid for it myself. Kingfisher Airlines was in no position to pay. I paid for it myself.

2:28:35Maybe in hindsight now, okay, and we're talking about December 2015, against an airline that shut in 2012. 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 onto it and bashed me for it.

2:29:32Fine. 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 employees of that business. For no one else. After putting 3000 crores of my own money into the business. I need to apologize. You've been wrong. But so have your employees of Kingfisher. What would you say to them who lost their jobs? Who still hold angst against you?

2:30:21If 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.

2:30:37I 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 Shail and 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 kingfisher airlines shut down in 2012 my 60th birthday was in december 2015

2:31:51right 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 advisors to find every single avenue to pay. 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 island's cash of united breweries holdings limited one of the co-galanters UBHL said we want to pay Kingfisher Island staff salaries please allow us the banks objected and the court did not give permission that is fact

2:33:30I 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 do you ever feel sorry that you couldn't do anything to give money to the employees? Obviously, but are you suggesting that I'm not sorry for what happened to Kingfisher 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 You were sad, but were you sorry about it? Sorry. I apologize publicly to everyone for the failure of King Christian Airlines. Till today, I'm willing to apologize. I did my very best.

2:34:25I 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 an hour 1.75 lakh crore 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 them think does it bother you and who made Kingfisher Airlines so public who made it

2:35:30Damania Airways started and failed East West Airlines started and failed Right? Jet waves eventually failed. Right? Modi Luft started and failed. Right? Paramount started and failed. You read about them? Only Kingfisher and Malaya. 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 yeah 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 and CBI concluded their case that they found you ciphering the money was that the thing?

2:36:57Completely false there is no allegation of money ciphering by CBI what did CBI conclude? Nothing that I spent on a private jet, which was Kingfisher Airlines own asset. Yeah. That I misrepresented to IDBI while taking the loan. What did you misrepresent? That I misrepresented. You asked me a question about brand valuation, right? So one of them, one of the allegations is brand valuation. Was it also bizarre like IDBI gave you loan in just two days and on Sunday you got the money transferred in your bank? Yeah, but then that was a short term loan. Okay. They got the money back and then they participated in the consortium lending.

2:37:40Okay. Yeah. So, but there is no allegation of siphoning money. None. Zero. So, there was misrepresentation? Yeah, that's it. And using that money or using the Kingfisher loan proceedings to buy a private jet? Not. Private jet was owned by Kingfisher Airlines.

2:37:59Kingfisher 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. Ambani's in Mumbai airport and ask them who uses your jets, you'll get the answer.

2:38:23Come on, deflecting is not a right way of answering. I'm not 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 no? I am not agreeing with anything. Obviously, I don't 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, you're standing here, I'm going to Air India.

2:38:58That's what CBI had problem with. Is that the case? Yes. You took the... Come on, that would not only be the case. That would be a part of your case. Let's say using... This is what I am saying. The principle one was misrepresentation. Okay. So that is first. Misrepresentation. And because of this, they issued an LOC. They issued LOC, right? Lookout Circular to the immigration office. Vijay Malaya should not leave the country. No, I am not aware of any of that. Okay. because then there was a public issuance again in 2015 where the loc which was issued for you had few words changed i know nothing about this okay so there was and this i'm quoting from again another article where i can show you the article yeah i've never heard of this okay so the article said that you met with someone really powerful and after that in just few months the The lookout circular got changed.

2:40:01And the lookout circular changed into, okay, next time to the immigration officers, that if Vijay Malaya 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 Malaya 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 entire time. Never a problem at all.

2:40:41And what you are telling me now is news to me. I have never known of a LOC issued or any other form of notice. The change happened on 24th November 2015. Just few words. and I specifically read this was a fresh LOC that he needs to be questioned before leaving the country where is he going and this needs to be informed to CBI after that he can continue travelling he should not be stopped that's fine you said when in 2015? 24th November 2015 a fresh LOC was and before that? before that there was just I must have gone in 4 times before that oh so then where's yellow sea

2:41:31so all of this is a random thing that you met someone really powerful in delhi and got chained 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 losing their shit 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'm not aware of any court hearing.

2:42:50I told the finance minister, Arun Jaitly, 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. Jet Li. He denied meeting me. A Congress MP saw us and then said to the media, No, I saw them together. Mr. Jetli had to retract his statement. Yes, yes. I met him, but only while I was walking. It was a fleeting meeting. I never said I went to Mr.

2:44:02Jetli'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. It can happen after a while. I didn't say that I was sitting in front of a seat and a chair. 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 said no he had a fleeting meeting with me and all this 15, 18 suitcases was complete and utter rubbish.

2:45:42So your intention was never to leave the country? Look, please understand this whole narrative of bhagya, bhagoda. 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 that is why I used to go back and forth so often alright 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 hangama how did Vijay Malaya leave How did he leave?

2:47:01Like any normal person on a jet airways flight.

2:47:08That 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. So I said, okay, let things cool down. 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 summons. I need some time. I'm negotiating. I want to settle with the banks. I've got some business to do.

2:47:56I have 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 right after you left passport gone how to travel

2:48:29So you got stuck because they revoked your passport your intention was to come back to country Many things may have been different But your intention was always Without a passport where do you go? Nowhere Correct Because you were a British citizen Not citizen permanent resident 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.

2:49:12Why 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. 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 prima facie case that I've stolen. You can't just make it up in your head that I've stolen money from the banks. You need some prima facie evidence. Have I done any money laundering?

2:50:09Have I done any drug smuggling? Have I been involved in any violent crime? What is the allegation against Vijay Maliya? nobody can have an allegation against Vijay Maliya 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 a crime isn't it you make up your mind then why did you freeze all my assets you froze my assets 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 are 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

2:51:56i 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 a long time ago but if i do any settlement with him i'll have the cbi on my neck the very next day

2:52:22and why do you think CBI has to do all of these things because technically banks you are saying banks want 14 ,000 crores isn't the CBI called a cage parrot

2:52:36but then banks ultimately want 14 ,000 crores so they don't want anything to happen why would bank want to settle you 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 9000 crore somewhere it's there is no 9000 that is all imagination 6203 is the real number judgment debt 6203 6203 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 have just said it I show you letters I have written to the banks nothing we cannot engage with you period you were part of the parliament and you had you were influential you had money you were powerful you could do nothing about all of this

2:53:37what went wrong that probably is the cause of everything that followed

2:53:47who do you make a poster boy somebody who is insignificant is it if you want to if you want to make an example of somebody who do you make an example a visible person or an invisible person definitely a visible person correct so there you've 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 suits you know to reject a settlement offer and to continue to claim that amounts are due to the banks and therefore you're a defaulter therefore we're 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 you kept asking me about me why people tag me willful defaulter why they accuse me why the narrative is so negative about me what happened to poor Narej Goel what happened India's biggest airline jet collapsed Narej Goel went to jail what happened to people like Gautam Thapur in Delhi in jail right so if your business does badly you're automatically referred to as a fraud the inference is that you've stolen in which countries does this happen the biggest companies in the world fail right are there senior management put in jail are they accused of fraud the whole purpose of business is associated with certain risk as well.

2:55:44Yep. Right. But in India, sadly, you have a business that fails. You're accused of fraud and improper conduct.

2:56:05and people say and the government and the agencies that your fraud or people whose businesses have failed a 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 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 guarantor? Despite 15 reminders, the same banks have not given me a statement of account.

2:57:11Not 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 in a summary fashion. In this entire debt of Kingfisher Alliance and the recovery, you have the recovery officer of the debt recovery tribunal.

2:58:06The debt recovery tribunal is the one 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-guarantor of the Kingfisher Airlines debt.

2:58:59Right? 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?

2:59:51It's certainly rigable. because in your case this is what happened right in my case all the facts are there for everyone to see what's the future 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 a certain extent, the government and what they have said.

3:00:45And of course, when I say government, it includes CBI and ED and this, that and the other. That's all you'll 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 narrative. BJP tells Congress, Tumne loan dilvaya. Congress responds to BJP, Tumne bhag ne diya. Vijay Malaya is the football in the middle.

3:01:48What is the biggest challenge of doing business in India? Government. Explain. It's in the Indian DNA. No matter what the state government or 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 but but no i mean you can't compare india and ease of doing business in india with any of the westerns economies but how did you manage that before like earlier you expanded your group from a couple of hundred crores to thousands of crore then definitely 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 the 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 cheap ministers what do you mean by becoming or getting into good books of the government Well, you know.

3:03:07Like 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. and 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 it is wrong okay you can have good relations with people and provided you present 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 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

3:04:36and 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 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 disburs alcohol 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.

3:05:30How do you make money now? How do you make money? Like today, how do you make money? I get a modest salary from my company. Not the Indian companies? No. So you, 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. Even though I sold Burjah 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. But if any number you had... And it's subject to a great amount of speculation. Frankly, what difference does it make?

3:06:20What's your net 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 is 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 abreast of international news I love my dogs I play with them a lot. 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, they told you I have running businesses. So I keep an eye on them. But sadly, a lot of time is taken on unproductive and very expensive legal matters sadly once again the banks in india who are state-owned 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 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 there's let's put it this way there's enough to go around what kind of businesses are you the same brewery or something else oh yeah basically say it's 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

3:08:17do you feel restricted now because you just use word I was born in a bottle do you feel that you have 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 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 travel, right? Right.

3:09:05So 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, it doesn't bother me. Do I look bothered? 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?

3:10:10No. 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.

3:10:57So don't you feel lonely here? No, well, I have a lot of my friends here in England. A lot of people come and visit me. Well, another one of life's lessons is when times are tough you realize who your actual friends are and i have realized that very comprehensively i mean those who used to be my so-called buddies who

3:11:33in times of my heyday for lack of a better word are nowhere to be seen so you used to hang out with a lot of billionaires bollywood celebrities politicians a lot of people and your friends from the corporate world they all stopped taking up your calls 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 says if we are seen to be associated with you this government will come after us because I think in the political world, I think it's pretty well-known and more importantly, pretty obvious that this government is after me.

3:12:20So they want to protect themselves. As far as corporate titans are concerned, I mean, Kiran Mazumdar, 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 a 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 Mazoom Darsha. 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 statue living in a very a 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 a lot of people are optimistic which i was probably rather more optimistic than most and she talks about it A question of just optimism, let me tell you.

3:14:02Kiran 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 Mazumdar 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 colony, with one wall separating us. So we were very, very close. And Kiran has been very, very different. She started off being a qualified brewmaster. How many Indian women can you think of who would go and qualify as a brewmaster?

3:15:00But Kiran was determined to do it and she did it in Australia.

3:15:08So, 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 forget about just putting in 3 000 crores i mean every bit of my blood sweat and tears went into trying to make kingfisher airlines work now that she isn't here you are not there here you're alone friends parties businesses that busy restless life nothing is there in nine 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.

3:16:41But 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. Tell me, 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 browbeats I don't get pushed over I stand my ground and the media hate it.

3:17:53They 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 now it has become your image that hey I don't get I'm not gonna break in front of you guys so I'm gonna 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.

3:18:48There 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. It'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 Kingfisher well I'm sad about it because, you know, it's not just about Kingfisher. I have never been used to business failure.

3:19:43I 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 Kingfisher was still flying? It was just circumstances at that particular time, government policies that didn't help, and mounting losses.

3:20:44But I gave it my all, as 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 Kingfisher. 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,

3:21:19what 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 scare me. Extradition? Oh, yeah. Look, if you're talking about the legal issues, there are multiple legal issues, 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 and are you prepared for the worst of course i have to face the worst.

3:22:19I have no qualms or no doubts in my mind that if the worst is what is destined for me, well, that's what's destined for me and you face it head on. What do you think is worst? 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 Tihar or Ather 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 a 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 and those that is how I'm gonna 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, shit, why me?

3:23:43What 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 misaligned. Do you believe in it? No.

3:24:06i don't believe in astrology but do you believe in god god very much so i'm deeply religious i've 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 sabrimala temple in kerala the entire gold roof was donated by me tirupati tirumala temple the entire gold prating of the front of the sanctum was donated by me i've donated dwaja thambas in the subramanya temple and mukambika temple I yeah so I definitely believe in God do you not then question it no I don't question it I just I just like to 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

3:25:21that 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 quotes 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, date's fixed, trial date'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.

3:26:16What 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 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 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 well maybe i made one wrong choice in listening to the finance minister, Mr.

3:27:41Pranab Mukherjee. 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 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 fisher 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?

3:28:33Once again, a major misconception. Just because I had the Kingfisher Gallander with pretty models. Just because 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 crores. They're all gone. Right? So what do I have left?

3:29:31that's India here you're sitting in my house I've explained my lifestyle it's normal what's super rich about it?

3:29:48come on what's super rich about it? this is super rich let's just agree to disagree here come on 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 Kingfisher Airlines did you ever make it or it was always just the media who did it it was only 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 Malaya I'm talking about how I have been wronged I'd like to show you something.

3:31:25All right. Here is the recovery certificate of the Debt Recovery Tribunal. It says recovery certificate 6 ,203 crores, 35 lakhs, 3 ,879 and paisa 42 only. That's the 6 ,203 crores plus interest at 11.5 percent with yearly rests right so that is that is evidence of the debt right okay you asked me earlier where did this 9 000 crore figure come from this is the official debt recovery tribunal Karnataka bank laws document that's and they have said that you owe 6203 crore rupees me along with four others yeah correct okay Kingfisher Airlines United Beaveries Vijay Malaya Kingfisher Fine West okay so the assets of all those combined right would need to satisfy the The judgment debt of 6 ,200.

3:32:51Yeah. Before I go very further, I'm the one under attack. Not all four. Anyway, you asked me about where this 9 ,000 figure came from. Yeah, because it's written 6 ,200. No problem. Plus interest, whatever the case may be. That is dated 2017, if you see the date of the document.

3:33:23I can't see. Where is this? Maybe you should go to the end. Okay. Last signing. Yeah. Date of delivery is 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 crore, but government recovered 14 ,000 crore, says PM Modi, on India's action against Vijay Malaya.

3:34:29but why would a PM say 9000 crore where this number

3:34:39I 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, 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 this 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 recovery from a guarantor called Vijay Malaya he addressed it because your case was very public and a lot of people are questioning it.

3:35:41You became a public matter. You were no more a private defaulter. So I'm the only one according to you. No, you were way too public than others. There are several other companies who have borrowed a lot more money. I mean, seriously, a lot more money. But nobody gets mentioned. Anyway, that's fine. I'm just narrating the sequence of events. then before we go there who are you actually fighting against media government or judiciary I am not in court against the media I am not in court against the judiciary I can't be I am defending myself from those who are prosecuting me and the prosecutor is either the government or the bank.

3:36:42Simple. 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. between you and the general manager and no no the chairman and managing director and executive directors 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 ministry of finance representative on their board all the loans that Kingfisher Airlines received were approved by their board

3:37:41that I will draw your attention to a 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 one results the managing director and CEO, M.K. Sharma, 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.

3:38:52then why

3:38:58why 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,

3:39:47this follows the finance minister's statement in Parliament on the floor of Parliament on December 17, 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, restitution of properties to victims of money laundering slash legitimate claimants. 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 claimants the details of the restitution slash restoration done by ed are given below number one vijay malia case quantum of properties restored 14 131.6 crores and in the comments section details of restoration says complete amount of attached properties have been successfully restored to the public sector banks

3:41:34how did they recover 14 000 crores what did they sell what did they do have not given me a statement of account. So you don't know what property or shares have been sold. We talked earlier about properties that were given to them, right?

3:41:53So everything, walk me through it again if you can, please. What were the things that, how did they recover 14 ,000 cross? They attached all my assets. And highlight two or three? All my shares. Which got like 14 ,000. Properties. Everything they attached. And they sold. But in the absence of a statement of account, can you believe it, 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.

3:42:43Nothing. 15 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 a 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 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 so I made four different settlement offers in writing from when to when So around 2016, including before the Supreme Court of India, which the banks dismissed.

3:44:07Before 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 in March and told him that Pudi, please facilitate a 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 2.

3:44:58I'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 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 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 2nd but my world council meeting okay obligation and appointment was fixed three months before that that is okay i'm not saying that so that was already a well-established travel plan plus i once again remind you i told the finance minister himself on the day of my departure But that doesn't mean that you are not aware of this.

3:46:04Aware of what? 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.

3:46:20Supreme Court has said this. 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'm much thought you you left on march 2nd so unfortunately i don't have the supreme court document but i only have news clippings and 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 you wanted to maybe come back but you were yourself in shock that the passport was revoked right yes 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 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 revocation suspension was 15th April 2016 and 24th April was the revocation you know the dates better than me okay 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 after 15 when you got to know that your passport getting suspended?

3:48:52I replied to them. 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 didn't go talk to them. I'm not. I can only talk about what I could find online through newspapers. So that's the only thing unfortunately I could talk about. The 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. So. And then. And remains revoked.

3:49:30So didn't you fight back? What is there for me to do? To get the passport back? I have to go back to court. I have to claim my rights under the constitution of India. That I have a constitutional right to a passport. 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. I'll come back to the country. I'll abide by the law and I'll fight in the courts. Raj, in your view, how many fronts should somebody open up?

3:50:05How 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 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 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 are assured Fair trial?

3:51:16If I am assured, absolutely 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 ECHR, 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 extradited as well, right? You lost the case.

3:52:23It's all right. I mean, I have a legal... They arrested you as well and then they left... They granted you bail, right? What happened? Normal part of extradition. Normal. That's the procedure. What happened with the extradition? Nothing. My stay in England is fully legitimate. But you lost a 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 are assured of air 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 told 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 chor they look them in a bad eye because that's something which socially we are conditioned to look at in that way but they've stayed there that's why they've not been called fugitives or chor 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.

3:54:30I flew out of India on a pre-scheduled 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 choree? 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 chori there you took loan your company kingfisher airlines took 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 3000 crores 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 3547 crore was laundered in 2017 cbi elished that 423 crore was from king fisher 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 nexus 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 have also found you guilty for misrepresentation of funds right and they've lost cases swiss not course swiss authorities what about the swiss authority they've also found that there were transactions during those times 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 properties should be frozen right only the swiss acted on it The French acted on it.

3:57:14Fine. They were not stolen properties or acquired from any money 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 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. You import spares, you pay in dollars. You have aircraft checks and services, you pay in dollars.

3:58:09right 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 it 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.

3:58:55What is laundered? 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 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 outrages 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 they have won cases in India they have concluded certain things and that's why they are fighting on some grounds why would UK courts even entertain if there is no proof why would anybody have anything around them UK courts entertain what Indian CBI authorities action against you or case against you if there is no proof the job of the UK court is only to establish and determine whether there is a prima facie case to be sent to trial.

4:01:05Right? The UK court has not adjudicated and said you are either guilty or innocent. The job of a UK extradition judge is to say, 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 caught it so it has just got gone to the trial. So, absolutely. Okay. What is the allegation? I misrepresented the Kingfisher financials to the IDBI. Yeah. I colluded with the senior management of the IDAI to get the loan.

4:02:02Right? And then I misused the proceeds of that 900 crore loan. Those are the three allegations. the allegation, sub-allegation about Formula One team sponsorship. I responded to you earlier. The Formula One team sent back 10 million pounds to Kingfisher Airlines to help it. All right. They brought in Royal Challengers, Bangalore is 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's right, who's wrong, whether this tantamounts to siphoning or diversion or improper use.

4:03:15In 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 Kingfisher didn't meet the norms. Right? Kingfisher's financials were weak. Yes, I agree. but the board of the IDBI bank would have found out and commented upon it themselves.

4:04:11They approved it. 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 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 4100 crores 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 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 grant thornton grant thornton is a very very well established 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 grant thompson brand valuation report, right?

4:05:43The bank took it.

4:05:49I 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.

4:06:15It's all very well in hindsight to construct a case with all sorts of frivolous allegations and fine, 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? None of my case is in the Supreme Court. supreme court ordered you to disclose all your assets on 21st april 2016 right 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 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 give the statement of account so we will come to that 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 four five minutes you left the country you didn't intend to leave the country you were just you just left because there was a pre-scheduled meeting then after a month you get to know that you've been suspended your passport has been suspended eight nine days later it gets revoked and since then you're stuck here 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 are guilty i mean that's what they're calling it right they're giving you name okay everybody has given you a tag of let's just not use the word guilty cbi hasn't taken place so the question of guilt doesn't arise yeah so cbi ed multiple courts the government people of india everybody calls you a fugitive fraud chore 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 explain What is the root cause for all this?

4:09:46Money. 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 ,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 would 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 loss to public to the common man indian taxpayer is the money which has been more than recovered.

4:11:37Fine, I am ready to face trial for intention. So, if they want to convict me for bad intention, I will fight it. Win or lose, I will fight it. But you have a problem with they calling you chore because you have repaid the money. I am probably the only chore who has been called chore after repaving two and a half times. But it is okay. It is part of life. You also filed a petition in Karnataka, I quote right? What is happening there? I don't know. That petition as I told you was simply to direct the banks to provide a statement of account. Which once again I find exceptionally strange. I mean, this is probably the only example globally where banks do not render a statement of account.

4:12:32But if you say that you've recovered everything and if banks 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 start and audit me. Nothing.

4:12:57then 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. I went to Geneva for a meeting. And then, you know the media furore 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.

4:14:11I mean the banks have got lucky isn't it getting 4100 crores because of the appreciation of my shares 14000 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 still call you fraud if… I have done whatever I could. If you would have stayed in India and cooperated with banks, people would not call you fraud. Fine. So, people are abusing me. Maybe will continue to abuse me. There's nothing I can do about it. That's why I kept quiet for nine years. Is there any proof where you requested banks that I want to settle way before all of this started?

4:15:14Of 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 Maliya to be remembered for hopefully for the good things that I might have done certainly not for being a chore

4:15:52perfect alright thank you for doing this you are 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 thank you so much for walking us through every little thing good thanks for being here thank you

4:17:01Thank you.

4:17:31Thank you.

4:18:22Thank 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.