Mallya never intended to repay loans CBI

NEW DELHI (TIP): Liquor baron Vijay Mallya never intended to repay the loans he took for Kingfisher Airlines, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claimed in its supplementary charge sheet,which it filed against the embattled businessman and 10 others earlier this month.

In the supplementary charge sheet, the CBI alleged that Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, its corporate guarantor United Breweries (Holding) Ltd and personal Guarantor Vijay Mallya misled banks and obtained loans with the intention of cheating. The agency claimed that evidence it had gathered showed that “Mallya and UBHL had dishonest intention not to repay the dues of the bank from the inception”.

By 2009, Kingfisher had taken loans totalling Rs 4998.5 crore from various banks and needed another Rs 2,500 crore, of which a consortium of 17 banks sanctioned a loan of Rs 2,000 crore. The charge sheet lists number of allegedly false claims made by Mallya while obtaining these loans.

The CBI said the first thing KFA lied about was how the money would be invested in KFA. According to the CBI, while obtaining a loan of Rs 950 crore from IDBI Bank, KFA they would infuse Rs 200 crore of this in the company in three years. “It was repeatedly conveyed by KFA that additional equity of $ 400 million would be infused though strategic investors,” CBI claimed in the charge sheet.

“Investigation further revealed that KFA were making such false promises of equity infusion to various banks from as early as January 2006, without any real intentions of fulfilling such promises,” read the charge sheet. The second lie was about inflated value of the Kingfisher Airlines brand.

The airline claimed to have obtained brand valuation reports from two firms, Grant Thornton and Brand Finance.

CBI claimed that Grand Thornton had assigned a “highly exaggerated and inflated” value of Rs 3406.3 crore to KFA while Brand Finance said it was worth Rs 1,911 crore.

The CBI alleged that Mallya quoted Grant Thornton’s figure when he used KFA’s brand value as collateral against a loan from SBI and “deliberately concealed” Brand Finance’s valuation.

The charge sheet read, “Mallya and KFA, with a view to induce the bank to sanction a higher loan, used the said inflated and exaggerated valuation report of Grant Thronton,while a report based on more realistic projections prepared by Brand Finance was deliberately concealed from the bank.”

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