Public | |
Traded as | : |
Industry | Conglomerate |
Founded | 1857 | ; 159 years ago
Founder | Thomas Leishman |
Headquarters | UB City, Bangalore, Karnataka, India |
Area served
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World-wide |
Key people
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Products | Brewery, alcoholic beverage, engineering , real estate , horse breeding , derbies , Investments in sports |
Revenue | $1.2 billion |
Subsidiaries |
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Website | www |
Location | Bangalore, Karnataka, India | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Opened | 1857 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Owned by | UBHL and Heineken International (74%) | ||||||||||||||||||||
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United Breweries Holdings Limited (UBHL) or UB Group is an Indian conglomerate company headquartered in UB City, Bangalore in the state of Karnataka, India. Its core business includes beverages, aviation and investments in various sectors . The company markets beer under the Kingfisher brand, and owns various other brands of alcoholic beverages. It also launched Kingfisher Airlines, an airline in India whose operation has been halted after problems in 2014 that led to its licence being revoked by the DGCA. United Breweries is India's largest producer of beer with a market share of around 52.5% by volume.
The company chairman is Vijay Mallya, who left India on 2 March 2016, allegedly to escape legal action by Indian banks to whom he owes some ₹9,000 crore (US$1.3 billion) in loans. United Breweries now has greater than a 40% share of the Indian brewing market with 79 distilleries and bottling units across the world. Recently, UB financed a takeover of the spirits business of the rival Shaw-Wallace company, giving it a majority share of India's spirits business. The group also owns the Mendocino Brewing Company in the United States.
The UB Group was founded by a Scotsman, Thomas Leishman, in 1857. The Group took its initial lessons in manufacturing beer from South India based British breweries. At the age of 22, Vittal Mallya was elected as the company's first Indian director in 1947. After a year, he replaced R G N Price as the chairman of the company. Rangarajan took over from R G N Price.