Vijay Mallya, the former promoter of grounded Kingfisher Airlines, was declared bankrupt by the London High Court on the 26th of July, earlier this year. Before that, he was a fugitive from the Indian government, living in the United Kingdom as a Baron. Which, of course, doesn’t seem like a plausible option once you declare yourself broke.
I mean, this man likes to party. At his 50th birthday bash, he had Lionel Richie perform at his luxurious villa in Goa. For his 60th, he called Enrique Iglesias to the same venue. He used to own a $93 million yacht with a helipad!! And all this was while Kingfisher employees were protesting delayed payments.
Anyhow, since his flight to the UK, Mallya has been in a legal war against banks, investigators and the Ministry of External Affairs. The ministry had revoked his passport in April 2016. Mallya has been arrested and bailed out within a few hours, a number of times.
This man’s life is so well documented that Netflix actually made a documentary on him like he was the last living male of a near-extinct species.
And the banks have recovered a significant portion of the money they had lent him by selling his assets. So how does Mallya manage these days?
I mean, I know rich people broke ain’t really broke but come on, the dude’s a baron. How could he possibly afford being that guy?
Well, according to the submissions made by banks in the London High Court, the former king of good times is living off his partner, personal assistant, a business acquaintance and his children.
His partner Pinky Lalwani gets richer by about Rs 1.35 crore every year. That said, Mallya still had Rs 2,956 crore in personal assets in 2019, which he had put forth in his settlement offer to the Karnataka High Court.
But like I said, when billionaires go broke, that’s still a few million times richer than us! So, Mallya’s doing goood, really!