Cricket has proven a better investment than the stock market for India’s billionaires, prompting tycoons to line up this weekend to buy new franchises.
The Indian Premier League, playing a three-hour version of the traditional five-day game, has set a March 21 deadline for prospective owners to bid for its ninth and 10th teams. The $225 million minimum is more than double the highest bid submitted for an original team.
The eight teams’ owners include Mukesh Ambani, the world’s fourth-richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd.; billionaire Vijay Mallya, chairman of UB Group; Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan; and movie megastar Shah Rukh Khan. The league’s appreciation outpaced last year’s 81 percent gain in India’s benchmark Sensitive Index, the most in 18 years.
“The speed with which the IPL has been able to generate value in a very short span of time is astonishing,” said Unni Krishnan, managing director of Brand Finance in India. “I would bet that there is no comparable brand in the world.”
Source : http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-18/billionaires-in-cricket-mad-india-seek-market-beating-teams.html
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