ED likely to sell a chunk of Vijay Mallya's unpledged shares in United Breweries

Vijay Mallya

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is planning to sell a major part of Vijay Mallya's unpledged shares in United Breweries to raise more than Rs 4,000 crore, which is almost half of what the liquid baron owed to lenders, reports The Economic Times.

An official told the paper that the ED has got hold of 4 crore unpledged shares, which constitutes to around 15.2 percent stake, owned by Mallya.

The shares have been transferred to the ED by the Stock Holding Corporation of India under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), sources said. The remaining 27 lakh crore shares will soon be transferred.

The shares will be sold under Section 9 of the PMLA. The Act points that after an order of confiscation, all the rights and titles in such assets stay with the Centre. The estimated amount by the sale of his shares is Rs 4,327 crore. The estimate comes about by Thursday's closing price which stood at Rs 1,081.85

Earlier, cases which involved a sale under the provisions of money laundering law were Ramalinga Raju.

As of now, Mallya owns 29.46 percent in United Breweries which comes to around 7.79 crore shares. Out of these, 3.52 crore shares constituting 45.17 percent of his stake is pledged with lenders.