Auction finds no takers for Kingfisher brands, trademarks

Auction of brands and trademarks of the long-grounded Kingfisher Airlines turned out to be a tame affair today as lenders failed to attract a single bidder for sale of these pledged assets at a reserve price of Rs366.70 crore in their efforts to recover unpaid loans from beleaguered businessman Vijay Mallya.

This is the second failed attempt by the 17-bank consortium, led by state-run State Bank of India, to recover some money from selling Kingfisher's assets, after an earlier auction of Kingfisher House - the former headquarters of the airline - met with a similar fate, with no bidder coming forward.

The items on sale in Saturday's online auction included the Kingfisher logo and also the once-famous tagline 'Fly the Good Times'. Other trademarks on sale included Flying Models, Funliner, Fly Kingfisher and Flying Bird Device.

The reserve price for the trademarks was kept at Rs366.70 crore - not even one-tenth of the price at which it was pledged as collateral for the loan. Sources, however, said the reserve price was "too high" for any bidder to come in.

"There were no bids, possibly because the reserve price was considered very high. Though the reserve price was set much lower than its original valuation at the time of taking the brand as collateral, people still found it to be high," a banking source said.

The online auction began at 11:30 am and lasted for an hour without any success. It was conducted by SBICAP Trustee Company on behalf of lenders under the Sarfaesi Act.