United Breweries Group
United Breweries Holdings Limited (UBHL), also called UB Group, is an Indian conglomerate headquartered in UB City, Bangalore, Karnataka. Its core business includes beverages 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. The conglomerate owner is Vijay Mallya, who left India on 2 March 2016, allegedly to  escape legal action by Indian banks to whom he owes some in loans. United Breweries now has greater than a 40% share of the Indian brewing market with 79 distilleries and bottling units around the world. In 2005, 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. History. The UB Group was founded by a Scotsman, Thomas Leishman, in 1915, when he brought together Castle Brewery and Nilgiris Breweries (1857), Bangalore Brewing Co.  (1885), British Brewing Corp. (1903) and BBB Brewery Co. Ltd. (1913). 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. United Breweries made its initial impact by manufacturing bulk beer for the British troops before independence, which was transported in huge barrels or "Hogsheads". Kingfisher, the group's most visible and profitable brand, made a modest entry in the sixties. During  the 1950s and 60s, the company expanded greatly by acquiring other breweries. First was the addition of McDowell as one of the Group subsidiaries, a move which helped United Breweries to extend its portfolio to wines and spirits business. Strategically, the Group moved into agro-based industries and medicines when Mallya acquired Kissan Products and formed a long-term relationship with Hoechst AG of Germany to create the Indian pharmaceutical company now known as Aventis Pharma, the Indian subsidiary of the global pharma major Sanofi-Aventis. UB Group has had some relationship with United Spirits Limited, which is now majority -owned (54.8%) by Diageo. The logo. The Pegasus, which is the symbol of the United Breweries, first found its place as the Group logo in 1941. Then, the Helladic horse – associated with beer and nectar in Greek mythology – carried a beer cask between the wings, ostensibly because beer formed the core operations of the Group. Later, the beer cask was removed to represent the Group's multifaceted operations.