Videocon still wants an IPL team: Dhoot

Videocon Industries, the diversified business group, today said it remains interested in taking equity in any of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket teams.

The group had bid for the IPL’s Pune franchise in last week’s auction, but lost to Sahara Adventure Sports Ltd.

Speaking to reporters after announcing the group’s foray into the telecom business here today, Venugopal N Dhoot, chairman, said: “I am personally interested in cricket, one of the main reasons why we participated in the bidding.”

“If the first bidding could have been taken up, then probably we could have bagged the Pune team,” said Dhoot. The IPL governing council repeated the bidding process for the two new teams, for Pune and Kochi, since it decided enough companies hadn’t applied. In that first lot,only the Adani, Videocon and Jaypee groups had given bids.

“We are still interested in IPL. If we get some good equity opportunity, we will definitely look into it,” said Dhoot.

Sahara had bagged the Pune team franchise for 10 years with a $370 million (Rs 1,702 crore) bid. Amonar, which had also wanted Pune, had quoted $261.3 million (Rs 1,206.4 crore); Videocon had offered $319.9 million (Rs 1,471.5 crore).