S Panduranga Acharya, former Chairman and Managing Director of liquor company Shaw Wallace, which was later merged with United Spirits, passed away on November 7.

During the 1980s, Acharya was the uncrowned king of the domestic liquor industry, much bigger and larger than the late Vittal Mallya, father of Vijay Mallya. In fact, the Indian liquor industry can be divided mainly into two phases: during the reign of Acharya as the head of Shaw Wallace and post its acquisition, first by Manu Chhabria and later by Vijay Mallya.

Speaking to BusinessLine , Manu Chabbria’s brother Kishore who owns Officer’s Choice, which was part of Shaw Wallace stable and is currently the world’s largest whisky brand by volume, described Acharya as a gentleman and a man of integrity.

“He was a thorough professional and a man of principles. We requested him to continue as the head of Shaw Wallace but he declined.”

During his tenure, Acharya built an enviable portfolio of liquor brands such as Royal Challenge, Haywards (named after Sir Anthony Hayward, predecessor to Acharya), Officer’s Choice, Director’s Special and Antiquity.

Mallya’s most famous battle on which he spent the best part of his youth, involved wresting control of Shaw Wallace.

Eventually, he gave it away to the UK-based Diageo, a decade and half later. The liquor business of Shaw Wallace was merged into United Spirits post its acquisition, while the beer portfolio went to SABMiller.

Acharya began his career with Shaw Wallace as an assistant accountant and rose to become the company’s first Indian CMD.

When Shaw Wallace owners decided to sell the company to raise money to acquire a tyre company, Vijay Mallya, who had been eying its brands, decided to pitch for it.

As at that time Indian laws did not allow an Indian citizen to acquire the foreign shareholding of a company, Mallya roped in Manu Chhabria, an NRI, who used to run an electronics product entity, the Jumbo Group out of Dubai, to takeover Shaw Wallace.

Interestingly, Chhabria was unaware of the importance of Shaw Wallace until Mallya approached him. In his eagerness to buy Shaw Wallace, Mallya is learnt to have fallen foul of Indian forex regulations and was arrested on his arrival in Bangalore from Calcutta on June 5, 1985.

The arrest and with the Enforcement Directorate after him, Mallya had to give up his claim on Shaw Wallace only to hand it over to Chhabria.

But Chhabria had to face a series of court cases and boardroom battles as Acharya put up a tough fight to keep Shaw Wallace within the group.

The battle lasted over two years but ultimately, Acharya had to give in as at a crucial shareholders’ meeting in 1987 called to decide the ownership issue, financial institutions which had always backed him, decided to abstain themselves for reasons best known to them.

Chhabria managed to take over the company thereby ending the reign of Acharya.

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