Dear Jason,
You are truly right, and quite intelligent to not believe anything you hear without background information. Perhaps a couple things that might help you uncover the truth. After reviewing and truly understanding which superhero you are standing by with such conviction in learning about the about the effects of his products, person, company, i.e. However, this might help. If everything written in the newspaper, ad's and information provided is all proganda controled by him and his companies - how can one really know the truth.
1. If you do consume beer, try one in each different state, they all taste different. That means over time of being the best, they have deteriorated in the quality and do not have standards with their water used for the beer.
2. Who owns the Asian Age Newspaper that only writes negetive articles on everyone and everything ?
3. Who is he and what does he own, check this website: http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Mallaya_Vijay_766242996.aspx
4. This is an article copied from a website describes how he does business and rapes his own companies for his self interest, purchased a jet for himself out of company money, is that ethical ? And then the company goes under because it doesn't have funds ?
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05282/584839.stm
Heard Off the Street: 'King of Good Times' not so 'Dyn-o-Mite!' for investors
Sunday, October 09, 2005
By Len Boselovic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Bill Wade, Post-Gazette
Vijay Mallya holds a bottle of his beer, King Fisher.
Click photo for larger image.
Promotional materials for Vijay Mallya tout the 50-year-old head of $2.5 billion Indian conglomerate UB Group as a globe-trotting entrepreneur, bon vivant, member of Parliament, race car driver, yachtsman and championship horse breeder.
In short, as the promotional materials for his sweep through Pittsburgh last week testified, he is "the king of good times."
And Mr. Mallya -- "Dr." Mallya if you acknowledge his honorary doctorate in business administration from Southern California University for Professional Studies, a self-described "leader in distance learning since 1978" -- looks the part. The tall, heavily built beer baron sports a diamond in his ear, accenting his neatly trimmed grey beard and a flowing main of salt-and-pepper hair.
Shareholders of United Breweries and McDowell & Co., Mr. Mallya's Indian beer and liquor companies, will not dispute the "king of good times" title. United Breweries, India's largest brewer, earned shareholders more than a 1,000 percent return for the year ended Sept. 30 and 46 percent annually over four years, while McDowell shareholders earned nearly 600 percent in the most recent year and 100 percent annually in the prior four years.
For shareholders of Mr. Mallya's U.S. ventures, however, a more appropriate sobriquet might be "King of Hard Times."
Those U.S. enterprises include Ubics, a Canonsburg information technology services firm that assumed a lower profile two years ago after a dustup with its former auditors over Mr. Mallya and Ubics' decision to spend $4 million on a Boeing 727 and lease it to Mr. Mallya and United Breweries.
Shareholders unfortunate enough to have owned Ubics since 1998 have been saddled with annual declines of 36 percent in the stock price. Perhaps Ubics' 158 percent return over the last 12 months -- the stock's ascent from 19 cents to 49 cents is the equivalent of finding loose change on the street -- may have loosened their crown of thorns. They also may take comfort knowing that Mr. Mallya owns 51 percent of Ubics, so their pain is his pain, too.
Out West, Mr. Mallya is the 75 percent owner of Mendocino Brewing, which on a good day trades four shares for $1. Like Ubics, the Ukiah, Calif., brewer has proven immune to Mr. Mallya's magic. It's made money once in the last five years: $46,900 in 2003, chump change for an entrepreneur of the stature of the King of Good Times. Over the last five years, Mendocino has lost $5.1 million.
That might explain the delinquent property taxes. Unlike Ubics, which no longer is required to file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mendocino owes nearly $400,000 in back taxes on its Ukiah brewery, according to an amended annual report the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month. The report also indicates Mendocino's auditors are resigning.
Ubics' former auditors departed over the plane lease, thinking the arrangement may have violated Sarbanes-Oxley, the sweeping reforms enacted after Enron, WorldCom and other scandals.
Mr. Mallya defends the purchase of the $4 million jet, saying it allowed Ubics -- which was losing about $5 million annually at the time -- to earn more money on its cash than it would have by parking it in a bank. Mr. Mallya's United Breweries' lease required it to pay Mallya-controlled Ubics $50,000 a month.
"I encourage you to look at it as Ubics putting its money to work and making a hell of a lot of money out of it," Mr. Mallya said.
Given Ubics' track record with investing cash, he may be right. At about the time it was buying the jet, Ubics was buying back 183,200 shares from its then-chief executive officer at 10 times their market value.
The company's poor cash decisions came up at Ubics' shareholders meeting in Canonsburg Thursday. John Frankola, a professional money manager despite owning Ubics shares, was disappointed to learn the jet lease payments were reduced to $25,000 monthly as of Jan. 1.
Mr. Frankola said someone who leased a big expensive SUV couldn't renegotiate terms like that.
"There's no way I can go to GM and say 'Can you cut my lease payment in half?' " Mr. Frankola told the King of Good Times.
Mr. Mallya, who perhaps has a more worldly view than Mr. Frankola, allowed that there's a certain amount of give and take in the relationship between Mr. Mallya and United Breweries and Mr. Mallya and Ubics. He noted that UB has made about $1.8 million in improvements to the jet without asking for any money from Ubics.
"At the end of the day, I'm satisfied," Mr. Mallya said. "Ubics in no way has been disadvantaged."
Shortly after the plane purchase, Ubics sought and was granted SEC approval to be relieved of the responsibility of filing quarterly reports, proxy statements and other documents informed investors use to size up a stock. Many companies spilling red ink have done the same, saying they can't afford the disclosure costs imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley. Mr. Mallya is not a fan of the law, saying, "I think it's an extreme step."
After going private, Ubics rang up losses of $1.1 million in 2003 and $96,000 last year. Like many IT firms, it's still reeling from the bursting of the dot.com bubble.
To Mr. Mallya, that's no excuse.
"Ubics has not struggled per se. Ubics has unfortunately sailed with the tide. The past management of Ubics was not able to buck the trend," he said. "Good management finds a way around any depression in the environment."
Perhaps Ubics suffered from a lack of attention from its majority stockholder.
In addition to serving in the upper house of India's parliament, Mr. Mallya is a director at 20 or so Indian companies and a couple dozen more overseas. His latest venture is Kingfisher Airlines, named after United Breweries' flagship beer.
"I'm always claiming that 24 by 7 isn't enough. ... I love challenges," Mr. Mallya said.
New management was installed at Ubics last October and is showing signs of resuscitating the company, which has 50 employees in Pittsburgh and 200 in the United States. The U.S. operation finds opportunities and a recently opened India office delivers the low-cost IT services and outsourcing.
"We should have done it five years ago," Mr. Mallya said
Ubics posted a $139,000 profit in the first half of this year and should be even more profitable in the second half, Mr. Mallya told Mr. Frankola and the other shareholder attending the meeting.
The IT company doesn't enjoy the advantage of Mr. Mallya's alcoholic beverage ventures, which the King of Good Times says are nearly recession proof. When times are good, people drink to celebrate and "if they go the other way, people still try to wash their sorrows away," Mr. Mallya said.
Ubics shareholders can attest to that. While the company's losses have driven them to drink for years, six months in the black aren't likely to motivate them to hoist a Kingfisher to the King of Good Times.
I recently flew from Bangalore to Delhi and back on a Kingfisher Airlines flight.
