(Jan 22): Vaccine tycoon Adar Poonawalla said he will bid for Indian Premier League’s (IPL) 2025 champion cricket team Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
“Over the next few months, will be putting in a strong and competitive bid” for RCB, which is “one of the best teams in the IPL,” Poonawalla said in a post on X on Thursday.
The team is one of the most valuable franchises in the 20-over format of the game. Its owner, Diageo Plc, was seeking options to sell part or all of the club for a valuation of as much as US$2 billion, Bloomberg News had reported last year.
One of the founding teams of the IPL, it was initially owned by beer tycoon Vijay Mallya whose Kingfisher Airlines Ltd folded in 2012 after failing to pay creditors. Diageo took over the team after buying Mallya’s spirits business.
The team’s biggest star remains Virat Kohli, the former all-format captain of the Indian cricket team, who has one of the largest social media followings in the world for an athlete.
It was not clear from Poonawalla’s post if he would bid for the team in his personal capacity, or as part of investments by his company — Serum Institute of India Pvt.
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Separately, the Mint newspaper reported citing people it did not name that private equity firm Blackstone Inc and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte have bid for the cricket team, while global buyout firms including Advent International, PAG, and Carlyle Group are evaluating bids.
Spokespersons for RCB, Diageo, Advent, Temasek and Blackstone declined to comment to Mint’s request for comment, while PAG and Carlyle did not respond to the newspaper’s queries.
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