Capt Gopinath to sell Deccan 360

Bangalore/Mumbai: A final effort is on to salvage whatever little is left of Deccan 360, the air & ground cargo service launched by low-cost aviation pioneer G R Gopinath. Discussions have been initiated to sell the company to a Mumbai-headquartered, highly diversified, multi-billion dollar corporate group which has interests in retail and logistics, among various others.
Since early May, Deccan 360 had stopped its services because the volumes did not pick up to service the lease for the three Airbus 310s. The aircraft has since been taken back by the lessors.
Deccan 360 now has only two ATRs, which is grounded as the company is not taking any orders. Close to 1,000 employees have been asked to look-out for jobs and the majority have left the company in the past couple of months.
Deccan 360, launched during May 2009, had raised Rs 115 crore equity investment from Reliance Industries early last year, with a commitment to invest further as the operations expand. With operations of Deccan 360 not going according to plans, RIL stopped investments and is understood to have expressed willingness to exit or pare down its stake.
According to investment bankers close to RIL, Reliance Industries has since structured a transaction to move its investment in Deccan 360 to RIL’s CMD Mukesh Ambani’s personal investment portfolio.
Ever since May 2011, Capt Gopinath has been trying in vain to raise resources from various private equity funds and other global players to raise fresh investment through companies which would buyout RIL’s stake and invest further to take the operations further.
The search seems to have led him to the large corporate house and talks are understood to have progressed well.
02/09/11 Raghuvir Badrinath & Arijit Barman/Business Standard