V
V.Balasubramani
Guest
Don't spend more than what you earn: A lesson Vijay Mallya missed to learn
No more the king of good times
As the story goes, when the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in the country in 1975, she asked her staff to compile a list of India’s richest people. Among the names was that of a man called Vittal Mallya, someone not many had heard of because that is how he wanted it to be. “Who is he,” she is supposed to have asked of this enormously wealthy person.
People who knew him say the late Vittal Mallya had an uncanny ability to read balance sheets. Like a butcher who knows where the meat is bad, he spotted hidden losses and padded profits instantly. It was this penchant for numbers that led him to play the stock markets and invest in companies while at university. At 22, Mallya was elected as United Breweries’ first Indian director in Calcutta and a year later became its chairman. He migrated to Bangalore from Bengal and diversified his portfolio by acquiring food and pharma companies. His sudden death following a heart attack in 1983 meant his 28-year-old son Vijay Mallya inheriting a sound and successful business, but as time would show, not much of the father’s wisdom, financial sense and focus.
See more at: http://www.thenewsminute.com/articl...allya-missed-learn-35051#sthash.6JHbrdZI.dpuf
No more the king of good times
As the story goes, when the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in the country in 1975, she asked her staff to compile a list of India’s richest people. Among the names was that of a man called Vittal Mallya, someone not many had heard of because that is how he wanted it to be. “Who is he,” she is supposed to have asked of this enormously wealthy person.
People who knew him say the late Vittal Mallya had an uncanny ability to read balance sheets. Like a butcher who knows where the meat is bad, he spotted hidden losses and padded profits instantly. It was this penchant for numbers that led him to play the stock markets and invest in companies while at university. At 22, Mallya was elected as United Breweries’ first Indian director in Calcutta and a year later became its chairman. He migrated to Bangalore from Bengal and diversified his portfolio by acquiring food and pharma companies. His sudden death following a heart attack in 1983 meant his 28-year-old son Vijay Mallya inheriting a sound and successful business, but as time would show, not much of the father’s wisdom, financial sense and focus.
See more at: http://www.thenewsminute.com/articl...allya-missed-learn-35051#sthash.6JHbrdZI.dpuf
