Mint reported earlier, citing a person aware of the development, that Adar Poonawalla, who is the owner of Serum Institute, is planning to buy the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) (Royal Challengers Sports Pvt. Ltd.) cricket team for a valuation of up to $1 billion-$1.2 billion. The deal will potentially value the Royal Challengers deal at over INR 106,000 million or more than 20 times the cricket team's revenue at the upper end, according to the report.
RCB posted a 21% drop in its revenue from core operations to INR 5,040 million as the team played fewer matches in the Men's IPL. The company's profit after tax also dropped 36% to INR 1,400 million, which made up for 9% of the income of United Spirits Limited (NSEI:UNITDSPR). Diageo India refused to comment on this development, and emails sent to Adar Poonawalla remained unanswered.
According to a CNBC TV-18 report, Adar Poonawalla aims to acquire the entire RCB franchise rather than just buying a minority stake in the company which runs the IPL team.
