Auction fails as no bidder turns up for Kingfisher brands

Mumbai  : Auction of brands and trademarks of Kingfisher Airlines turned out to be a damp squib today as lenders failed to attract a single bidder for sale of these pledged assets at a reserve price of Rs 366.70 crore in their efforts to recover unpaid loans from beleaguered Vijay Mallya.

This is the second failed attempt by the 17-bank consortium led by state-run behemoth SBI to recover some money from Mallya, after an earlier auction of Kingfisher House — the erstwhile headquarters of the long-defunct airline — met with a similar fate, with no bidder coming forward.

The items on sale during today’s e-auction included the the Kingfisher logo as also the once-famous tagline ‘Fly the Good Times’. The other trademarks on sale included Flying Models, Funliner, Fly Kingfisher and Flying Bird Device.

The reserve price for the trademarks was kept at Rs 366.70 crore, which is not even one-tenth of the price at which it was pledged as a collateral for the loan. Sources, however, said the reserve price was “too high” for any bidder to come in.

@Agency report.