Size of bids for new IPL teams surprises all, even Modi

22 Mar 2010

Source:economictimes.indiatimes.com

CHENNAI/MUMBAI: The Sahara group won the bid for IPL franchise Pune on Sunday. Giving reasons for their choice of city, Abhijit Sarkar, corporate communications head at Sahara, told TOI: "It’s close to Aamby Valley. We have our business reasons for choosing Pune."

The second bid was for $333.33 million (Rs 1,533 crore) from a consortium of investors under Rendezvous Sports who opted for Kochi as their base camp. “It would suffice at this point of time to let you know that we are a group of investors passionate about cricket.

“Some are from Kerala, some from other parts of India and some from abroad. I would not like to reveal too many details at this point of time,” said Vivek Venugopal, a builder from Kerala and one of the investors in the state. However, it is learnt that the group also includes Anchor Switches, Rosy Blue Diamond , Mukesh Patel, and Ravi and Sanjay Gaikwad.

Anchor Switches is a company from Gujarat owned by Mehul Shah. Rosy Blue Diamond is one of the world’s largest diamond manufacturing companies. Dilip Mehta is the CEO of this company, which owns jewellry brand ‘Orra’ . Ravi and Sanjay Gaikwad are Mumbai-based businessmen. Sanjay Gaikwad is the CEO of UFO Moviez while Mukesh Patel is an education baron who runs technology, management and engineering institutions.

The size of the bids surprised one and all, including Modi himself. “I was expecting something in the range of $320m, but this does come as a surprise to me. You talk about recession, but all I can say is that there’s no recession in IPL,’’ exulted a beaming Modi. Among the losers , Aman Vohra placed a bid of $261.3 million, Adani Group bid $315 million for Ahmedabad and VC Digital bid $319.9 million for Pune.

"Kochi does not have a cricket stadium as yet. The Kerala Cricket Association is in the process of building a world class cricket stadium . Till the ground becomes ready, IPL will provide alternative venues to Rendezvous," Modi added. Pune, on the other hand, has a stadium under construction 30km from the city.

Sources close to Tharoor were, however, categorical that they would insist on some of the matches being held in Kochi. “We’ve a stadium there. If we have an IPL team, it’s for hosting matches in Kerala,” they said.