Newsmakers in March, 2015: Vijay Mallya, Amartya Sen, N Srinivasan

Business Today brings you snapshots from newsmakers this past fortnight.

KINGFISHER HOUSE GROUNDED

Vijay Mallya, the financially beleaguered head of the UB Group, would have expected 2015 to bring some change in his fortunes. He couldn't have been more wrong. Things have, in fact, not started on the right note for him. A 17-member consortium led by the State Bank of India took over the prized headquarters of Kingfisher Airlines located at Vile Parle, Mumbai. Spread over 17,000 sq. ft, Kingfisher House is valued at around Rs 100 crore. The bank consortium is trying to recover the Rs 6,800 crore it had lent to Kingfisher Airlines, which was grounded in October 2012 after running up huge losses. UB Group, however, claimed in a statement that it had handed over the property. Will Kingfisher Villa in Goa, another prized asset of Mallya, be next on the lenders' radar?
~ Venkatesha Babu

NOBLE INTENTIONS?

The government may have denied that it wanted to oust Amartya Sen from the chancellorship of Nalanda University, but the Nobel Prize-winning economist seemed firm on his decision to step down in July when his term comes to an end. Sen had said that his decision was driven by the fact that academic governance in India remains deeply vulnerable to the opinions of the ruling government. Sen, along with a group of scholars, was tasked with reviving the ancient university, about 800 years after it was razed by invaders. Lord Meghnad Desai, who is a member of the governing board of the university, refrained from commenting on the issue. "I will not comment on the Amartya Sen debate. As a member of the governing board, I need to wait till a full meeting of the board takes place before I can comment. Anything else would be irresponsible," he said.
~ Sarika Malhotra

OSCAR GLORY

It has always been Namit Malhotra's dream to make his company, Prime Focus, the Pixar of India. He wanted to be a name to reckon with, globally, in the visual effects space and, with this in mind, he acquired Double Negative, one of the largest global visual effect service providers, last June. Malhotra, indeed, is proud of his latest buy, as it won him an Academy Award (Oscar) for Special Effects for the film Interstellar. Back home, the pioneer of visual effects in India is a clear market leader, and is further consolidating his position. In fact, last year, he picked up a stake in Reliance MediaWorks.
~ Ajita Shashidhar

SHAKE-UP CASUALTY

In a major management shake up, Jaspal Bindra will be stepping down as Group Executive and CEO for Asia, Standard Chartered Bank. There is no communication yet on his new responsibility. Bindra, 54, has been with the bank for close to two decades. He was part of Global CEO Peter Sand's team. Sands, who ran the bank since 2006, has also quit his position. Having started his career with Bank of America in 1984, Bindra also worked with UBS. Known for his frank views, he courted controversy last year when he talked about banks increasingly being asked to police anti-money laundering activities. Standard Chartered had then termed it as his personal views.
~ Anand Adhikari

OLD GUARD TAKES GUARD

At the 85th Annual General Meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in Chennai on March 2, veteran cricket administrator Jagmohan Dalmiya was elected as its president. Many see this as a setback for N. Srinivasan, former BCCI president, and Vice Chairman and Managing Director of India Cements. The news comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding Srinivasan chairing a meeting of the BCCI working committee despite an apex court ruling barring him from functioning as a cricket administrator due to his conflict of interest as the owner of IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings. How Dalmiya's return as BCCI chief makes a difference to Indian cricket remains to be seen.
~ E. Kumar Sharma