KFA brand auctions: banks may cut reserve price

April 30, 2016 03:27 pm | Updated November 17, 2021 02:38 am IST - Mumbai

Kingfisher Airlines aircraft parked at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. File photo.

Kingfisher Airlines aircraft parked at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. File photo.

Lenders failed to find any takers for brands and trademarks of the long defunct Kingfisher Airlines at an e-auction today with their efforts to recover a portion of over Rs. 9,000 crore dues from beleaguered Vijay Mallya hitting yet another airpocket.

The reserve price was kept at Rs. 366.70 crore, not even a tenth the price at which the brand was pledged for an exorbitant Rs. 4,000 crore in 2010.

Sources said however that the reserve price was “too high” for any bidder to come in.

Today’s attempts came within 45 days of the 17-bank consortium’s failure to sell the Kingfisher House, the erstwhile headquarters of the airline, for Rs. 150 crore.

Lenders may now look at revising the reserve price for both Kingfisher House and brand Kingfisher and will soon start the valuation exercise, bank sources told PTI .

The items on sale during today’s e-auction included the Kingfisher logo as also the once-famous tagline ‘Fly the Good Times.’ The other trademarks on sale included Flying Models, Funliner, Fly Kingfisher and Flying Bird Device.

“There were no bids, possibly because the reserve price was considered very high. Though the reserve price was set much lower than its original valuation at the time of taking the brand as collateral, people still found it to be high,” a banking source said.

“The reserve price has to be again looked into,” said another banker.

May be the beer-maker United Breweries (a Mallya company) reported threat that the Kingfisher logo could only be bought/owned for aviation purposes could have played a role in the auction turning out to be damp squib.

In an official comment on the issue after the banks’ decision to auction the logo, United Breweries, the maker of Kingfisher and Kalyani Black Label beers, had warned that a buyer could use the logo only to set up another airline and for nothing else and anybody buying it for any other purposes would be legally challenged as it held exclusive rights to the brand.

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.