Sahara to buy Vijay Mallya's Force India?

Oct 07, 2011 - C. Santhosh kumar |

chennai

Tags:

Close on the heels of shutting down Kingfisher Red, his low-cost airline service, sources said that business baron Vijay Mallya is planning to sell his Formula One team — Force India.

Sahara India Pariwar, a multi-business conglomerate founded by Subrata Roy, is believed to be in talks to take over from Mallya, who co-owns Force India with Dutch businessman Michiel Mol.

Sources say the deal is on the verge of being finalised and that an announcement to the effect is expected in a couple of days.

Force India was formed in October 2007 when a consortium (Orange India Holdings) led by Mallya and Mol picked up the struggling Spyker F1 team for Euro 88 million.

The decision to sell Force India comes as a big surprise especially with the much-hyped inaugural Indian Grand Prix scheduled for Oct. 30 in New Delhi. Being on the podium at the Indian GP has been Mallya’s dream ever since he entered into Formula One business.

Roy is no stranger to sports as his group is the main sponsor for Team India (cricket and hockey squads). Sahara India also owns Pune Warriors India in the glitzy IPL.

Sources indicated Roy is keen to promote an Indian talent in F1 after buying the team. It’s a criticism that Mallya has taken in his stride maintaining that 'none of the Indians are good enough to drive his F1 cars'.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/100074" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a60fb69d13e5957ff191eb103fefd50c" value="form-a60fb69d13e5957ff191eb103fefd50c" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86988891" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>