Indian Billionaire Mallya buys Formula 1 Team

If you’re not yet familiar with billionaire and all-around playboy Vijay Mallya, here’s a primer:

Mallya is Chairman of United Breweries Group, whose brands include the #1 selling Indian beer brand, Kingfisher, top Indian scotch and gin brands, and Scotch whisky distiller Whyte & Mackay (which he recently purchased for $1.2B). His two-year-old Kingfisher Airlines ingeniously acts as a marketing tool for his beer (alcohol advertising in India is heavily regulated and quasi-illegal). The airline, originally launched to promote his liquor and beer bottling business, is rapidly taking market share from the top private airline in India, Jet Airways, and is poised to overtake them in 2010 when its nonstop routes to North America begin service. He’s got a megayacht, the Indian Empress, which he uses to host lavish parties for high-profile guests. The hard-partying-billionaire reputation that Mallya has cultivated for himself serves to define his brand: he aims to convince ever-more affluent young Indians to move up to his level of luxury-by buying his brands of top-shelf hooch, naturally.

Mallya isn’t stopping at air travel: today he announced that he and a Dutch partner have bought the Spyker-Ferrari Formula 1 team for $110M. The purchase gives Mallya’s beer and spirits juggernaut another avenue in which to advertise its growing spirits business to the increasingly liberal Indian public. The deal cut with F1 boss (and fellow über-affluent) Bernie Ecclestone has deeper meaning, however. The whole world has been trying to secure annual visits from Formula 1 (Bahrain, Malaysia, and Turkey all have Grand Prix events), and so far, India has been left out of the picture. India’s dream of attracting a grand prix may have just been granted by virtue of this deal. Mallya is already planning a New Delhi street course not unlike that of Monaco, with a design budget of $100M largely to be shouldered by the Indian taxpayer. The Indian Grand Prix will surely be a knockout event, considering Mallya’s penchant for celebration and the strong role he’s sure to play in the GP’s planning.

Is it just me, or does this guy belong in Dubai?