New Delhi: In a surprise move, Vijay Mallya has resigned as director from his group firm Mangalore Chemicals and Fertilizers, which is the target of a takeover battle between Deepak Fertilisers and Zuari Group.
The company did not gave any reason for the resignation of Mallya, who was also the Chairman of MCFL and remains the main promoter.
In a filing to the BSE, MCFL today said "...Vijay Mallya, a Director on the Board of Directors of the company, has resigned with immediate effect."
MCFL's shares spiked 15.3 percent to Rs 94.05 apiece on the BSE soon after the announcement but closed a bit lower at Rs 89.25, up 9.38 percent over Friday's close.
The resignation comes within days of minority shareholders of United Spirits rejected as many as 9 of 12 resolutions, including some pertaining to pacts with entities connected to erstwhile promoter Vijay Mallya.
The UB group has been seeing continuous troubles on various fronts for the last couple of years, beginning with a major cash crunch and high debt at once-luxury airline Kingfisher, forcing it be grounded in October 2012.
The group, which is also engaged in legal tussle with lenders, later sold a controlling stake in its prized unit United Spirits to Diageo while some other assets where also divested in other businesses and two rival bidders came up from MCFL.
58-year old Mallya's resignation at MCFL comes in the middle of an intense takeover battle between Kolkata-based industrialist Saroj Poddar-led Zuari group and Pune-based Deepak Fertilisers for wresting control of the UB group firm, which has a urea plant at Mangalore.
The plant has been shut from October this year due to expiry of permission given by the government for production of farm nutrient from high cost feedstock naptha.
In the battle for control of MCFL, Mallya had sided with Zuari group and launched the counter open offer to ward off the takeover bid of Deepak Fertilizers.
"Its a personal decision of Mr Mallya to resign from the MCFL's board, whereas our partnership with UB group for control of MCFL is concerned it is still there," sources in the Zuari group told PTI.
After the open offers of both Deepak and rival Zuari-UB group closed on October 20, Deepak Fertilisers' stake in MCFL increased by about 6 percent through an open offer to about 32 percent and inched closer towards the rival Zuari-UB group's combined stake of 38.4 percent.
The battle for MCFL between Deepak Fertilisers and Zuari Group was triggered in April 2013 when the latter bought about 10 percent stake in MCFL through open market.
Later, Deepak Fertilisers acquired 24.46 percent stake in MCFL in one-go in July 2013. After this, Zuari group had increased its stake to 16.43 percent in the same month.
The board of MCFL is being restructured to include two representatives of Poddar's Adventz Group.
