Mallya had bought the pedigree scotch major, based in Scotland, for $1.2 billion in 2007.
Brewing billionaire Vijay Mallya's woes seem to be compounding. His flagship spirits arm, United Spirits Ltd (USL), is starting to mirror Kingfisher Airlines.
The intrigue surrounding how the Vijay Mallya-led UB Group will address the spiralling debt problem of its companies took a fresh turn on Tuesday, with one senior official saying there was a possibility of group firm United Spirits Ltd totally selling out its flagship subsidiary Whyte and Mackay (W&M), the scotch major based in Scotland.
For the first nine months of the current financial year, net sales rose by close to 37 per cent to Rs 1,470 crore (Rs 14.7 billion( over the previous corresponding period, while operating profit increased by another 37 per cent to Rs 322 crore (Rs 3.22 billion).
Liquor baron Vijay Mallya is mulling to divest around 49 per cent stake in United Spirits Ltd's UK-based wholly-owned subsidiary Whyte & Mackay (W&M), which it acquired for 595 million pounds in May 2007.
While the enterprise value of 595 million may seem expensive for the acquisition of Whyte & Mackay by United Spirits, the fact remains that scotch is in short supply globally and there aren't too many companies up for sale.
In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), USL said it had made a recommendation to the board of subsidiary United Spirits to consider the sale of the entire share capital of Whyte & Mackay.