"Fly with Good Times" to be auctioned by lenders ; will there be a taker of a tainted brand ?

Bankers will be auctioning the Kingfisher trademarks including the  Kingfisher Logo and its catchy tagline "Fly with good Times" on April 30 with a reserve price of Rs. 366 crores.  The reserve price will include Funliners, Fly Kingfisher, Flying Bird Device , Flying Models and Fly the Food Times. On behalf of the lenders SBI Trustee Company a subsidiary of SBI capital will be conducting the auctioning on April 30. 

What will be interesting is to see why and which business entity or individual will be keen to buy this Kingfisher trademark and logo when the brand has more than lost its sheen. It will be extremely difficult for the lenders to recover money as aimed from the sale of the trademarks and logo. Grant Thornton has valued the brand Kingfisher at $550 million once it starts functioning and begins its operations.

Brand is nothing but its ability to generate higher income or sales compared to the products or service  with a less well known name as consumers perceive that a product with a well-known name is better than products with less well-know names.  In case of Kingfisher the brand is associated with the owner and Vijay Mallya by his actions has done more harm to the brand than good in recent times. 

This attempt to raise money by selling Kingfisher brands comes after a failed attempt to sell erstwhile Kingfisher Airlines Headquarters in Mumbai in Vile Parle, the Kingfisher House. The floor price set in the auction was at Rs. 150 crore for the property located close to the domestic airport in Mumbai. The built up area for the property is 17,000 sq ft. 

Consortium of lenders led by SBI are trying to recover Rs. 9,000 crores from Vijay Mallya.