New suitors are gearing up to own the eighth team in the Indian Premiere League (IPL) as the Kochi franchisees have failed to resolve their differences within the deadline given by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and decided to withdraw. The names doing the round include a consortium of Kerala film producers, actors and business houses including the Muthoot group. Business groups such as Videocon, Adanis and Jaypee are also likely to join the fray, sources in the sports consultancy business said.
BCCI will meet in Nagpur on November 28 to take a final call on the status of Kochi franchisee and announce fresh bids.
Apart from Kochi, Ahmedabad and Rajkot are likely to be the options for the eighth IPL team.
?BCCI may cancel Kochi altogether and put Ahmedabad and Rajkot on the block . However, Kochi can also be considered in the auctions as the situation is still fluid,? a source in IPL said.
The March reserve price of $225 million for the eighth team will be retained, the source added.
On Thursday, the Kerala Cricket Association secretary TC Matthew said that the Kochi owners had sent a letter to BCCI on their decision to withdraw from the fourth edition of IPL. Mathew termed it as very unfortunate incident for Kerala.
Sources in Kerala cricket circle said that a group of Kerala film producers, actors and business houses including the Muthoot group may bid for the Kochi franchise if it comes up for auction again.
“Already, a number of Kerala-based business groups have made inquiries on the fresh bidding for Kochi,” a senior executive in a sports consultancy firm said. Even Videocon and Adanis have expressed interest in bidding for the eighth IPL team, the source added.
Adanis had lost the bid for Pune franchise to Sahara and have been talking to IPL teams for picking up a stake.
The Muthoot group had also mulled bidding for an IPL team in the March auction.
Current Kochi promoters ?Rendezvous Sports and other investors ? won the bid for Kochi for $333 million but could not comply with the provisions of their franchisee agreement with the BCCI. Thereafter the BCCI gave the Kochi promoters one month time to resolve all differences. The deadline ends in two days.
The current Kochi promoters had to form a company and provide the shareholding details of each of the six promoters which has not happened. Currently, the Kochi IPL franchisee is owned by a two groups of investors. The first group comprises investors who are putting in the cash and hold 74% in Kochi IPL. These include Anchor Earth (27%), Parinee Developers (26%), Anand Shyam (8%), Film Wave (12%), and Vivek Venugopal (1%). The second group belongs to Rendezvous Sports World (RSW) that owns 1% sweat equity and 25% free equity. And this has been the bone of contention between the two groups as RSW wanted its free equity to be treated as equity for services rendered.