“Good times are anyway gone.” This remark made by a shareholder at the United Breweries’ AGM on Tuesday more or less summed up the current state of affairs of the UB Group.

But the remark was an isolated one as several other shareholders who spoke at the AGM seemed to be still in awe of Chairman Vijay Mallya.

If Mallya is a worried man these days because of a mountain of cases against his group companies, it never showed on his face while presiding over the AGM.

Sporting a Mohawk-like hairstyle complete with a ponytail, Mallya answered questions from shareholders confidently with his customary wit intact. When one of the shareholders wanted to know the reason for paying remuneration to the managing director for miscellaneous expenses such as buying mobile phones every month, pat came the reply from the chairman: “…because he (MD) loses his mobile phone.”

That was enough to silence the shareholder. There were other such comments from shareholders one of whom wanted to know the reason for higher glycerine content in domestic beer brands of the company. To which Mallya replied that if the company ever added glycerine in beer, it would have gone bankrupt long ago. “It is a myth. No company adds glycerine to beer,” he pointed out.

Term loans To another long winding question on the issue of term loans, Mallya cut him short by saying that what he wanted was a hefty dividend, and hence, he should have asked for it rightaway instead of trying to read out the balance sheet.

However, contentious issues such as reports about Heineken increasing its stake in United Breweries and whether Mallya will continue to remain the chairman as the UB Group’s stake has come down now, were never raised by the shareholders which made the annual general meeting rather a tame affair. Earlier, in his address to the shareholders, Mallya praised the BJP government for its move to clamp down on corruption, while stating that political rivalry had led to the opposition stalling Parliament and blocking the GST Bill from being passed. Mallya is a Rajya Sabha MP and won the seat with BJP’s support.

Mallya said United Breweries had grown seven per cent during the last financial year accumulating 147 million cases. During the year, a greenfield brewery near Patna commenced operations and a brewery acquired in Rajasthan will start operations this year.

Mallya was also elected unopposed as director of the UB Board during the AGM.

Soon after Mallya closed the meeting, he was surrounded by shareholders who rushed to click pictures with him.

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