Auction Fails as Kingfisher Brands Find no Bidder

MUMBAI: Auction of brands and trademarks of Kingfisher Airlines turned out to be a damp squib on Saturday as lenders failed to attract a single bidder for sale of these pledged assets to recover unpaid loans from beleaguered Vijay Mallya. This is the second failed attempt by the 17-bank consortium led by SBI to recover some money from Mallya, after an earlier auction of Kingfisher House — the erstwhile headquarters of the long-defunct airline — met with a similar fate. The items on sale during e-auction included the Kingfisher logo as also the once-famous tag line ‘Fly the Good Times’. The other trademarks included Flying Models, Funliner, Fly Kingfisher and Flying Bird Device. The reserve price was kept at `366.70 crore, not even one-tenth of the price at which it was pledged as a collateral for the loan.  The e-auction began at 11:30 am and lasted for an hour without any success. It was conducted by SBICAP Trustee. The Kingfisher brand itself was valued at over Rs.4,000 crore by Grant Thornton when the airline was at its peak.  In a previous attempt at recovery of dues, which have ballooned to over Rs.9,000 crore after taking into account the interest component, the banks had conducted an auction of Kingfisher House last month, but find no takers at a reserve price of Rs.150 crore.

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