Mallya to float sports assets?

With the Formula One Force India team starting to perform well this season, liquor baron and airlines tycoon Vijay Mallya plans to float his sports assets in the stock exchanges.

Vijay Mallya owns the Indian Premier League team Royal Challengers' Bangalore and the Formula One team Force India. He also has stakes in Kolkata based Mohun Bagan and East Bengal soccer clubs. According to a news report by Reuters, these assets may be consolidated into a single company after restructuring and floated on the bourses. The company's name can be UB Sports, according to the report (click here to read the report).

StocksCenter View:

This would be the first such listing in India. In the stock market, investing/ buying or selling shares of the company is essentially betting on the prospects of the company. Trading the shares of such a company as UB Sports would be a result of betting on the prospects of that company which would rely heavily on the prospects of the performance of the teams held by the sports company. The stock would be subject to tremendous speculation and betting. Initial shareholders may benefit, but then this stock would become one of the most difficult to read. It would be very interesting to see this particular stock trade. Since a variety of teams would be the underlying assets, the price would be affected by the performance each of them, but the major influence would be of Force India and RCB. I am simply opinionating here, and it's all too early to tell. After all, investing is slightly more than betting.