How Media Honcho's Opulent Life Style Ruined Him Professionally, Financially, Socially And Politically?

What is the common factor  between tycoons -Vijay Malya of  King Fisher airlines, Subrata Roy of Sahara and Tikkavarapu Venkatrami Reddy of Deccan Chargers ?

While they have survived and continue to live lavishly amidst Wine,Women and Wealth, the Public ltd Co's floated by them and public money invested have doomed and vanished. All of them  wanted to become the Gatsby and RIchies of  US but lacked acumen on  how to make the money to grow and instead chose short cuts and easy ways.


Venkatarami Reddy is thus in the league of  men like famous Harshad Mehta , Parekh Kothari, Ramesh Gelli and also Venkateswar Rao of Krushi Bank  and of course Ramaliga Raju of Satyam . The writing is clear for  all the young entrepreneurs from the lives and times of these  bigwigs that they chose  the short cuts to become rich overnight  and forgot the fundamentals of finance world - No short cuts for growing money .

Fortunately Venkatrarami Reddy (or as Venky, that is how famous  MJ Akbar used to call him) has something to fallback , the Deccan Chronicle- the old lady of Secunderabad. DC is continuously the money spinner and living on its own in spite of ups and downs   and crumbing of the Venky's  financial world .It is the same like Malyas -UB group and Subrata Roys  Rashtriya Sahara .

It is true that Venky's lifestyle changed after the debut  victory of Deccan Chargers in IPL. From  chartered aircrafts he went on to buy a sick airline in Russia . He  hired  an event management team from Mumbai and also 'Cheer girls' team from Kazakhstan to promote himself and his parties at West -End in Bangalore and also Taj hotel at Mumbai .' One party at Taj had cost him |Rs.  22 lakhs and the tip amount itself had been Rs.1.2 lakhs that night ' says a DC insider 

Both Venky,Malya and Substrata Roy swindled their own companies with hope that they could turn the tide against  the impact of recession next year, which never came.Banks lent them on the liquid properties they owned again and again, just because of their political clout and being bonhomie with power groups at Delhi I remember  how DC group organized a  shopping cum pilgrimage trip for some Mumbai based bankers  to Singapore, Srilanka, Dubai ,Tirupati, Srisailam ,Madurai, Vizag on a hired  flight  . So which Bank would not lend him money, even if the shares were forged copies ?.

During the AICC session at  Hyderabad in2006 , Venkay went out of the way to please the Congress honchos and  held parties at the Falaknuma palace for non stop three days and for the Jurnos from Delhi,Mumbai and Kolkatta at the Qutub Shahi tombs and the doors of his special rooms at Taj hotels was always opened for  them for cock tails .

He is known for his love of cars and he would pick up any new model of hi-end cars launched in the market. Rolls Royce Phantom, BMW, Land Rover, Benz..you name it and he would add it to his fleet of cars. Venky had hired parking space at a Mumbai studio for parking these cars at a cost of Rs.l.35 lakhs rental per month .

Then of course, everybody knows of his love for racing. Apparently, he would buy some really costly horses and send them to races all over the country. He had nearly 13  racing horses and 4  of them were permanently located at London to participate in races there and the rest were located at Kolkatta, Mumbai and also Singapore .

Some old timers in Deccan Chronicle tell us the stories as to hos Venkatarami Reddy and his men took money away from the ' cash box ' in the office every evening.Somedays and newspaper was printed late  as the banks would not realse the paper from  hypotheticated Godowns for printing  for failure of payments every day - a routine schedule in most of the newspaper managements .

I had attended an interview with Venkatrami Reddy when I had applied for a job in Deli bureau of the newspaper and  MJ asked me to meet him as Venky wanted to know people of his Delhi Bureau. He did not turn up till 1.30 but sent me a message that I could join him at Secunderabad Club after lunch .I grabbed a lunch at Basera hotel and rushed  there  only to be told that  Venky had left with a lady and that I could meet him next day .Such was his work discipline .

Whether Venky gets  bail or not  he has a tough job on hand to redeem all the debts . But more than that he has to regain the confidence of the people . No doubt  he could not become a Rajya Sabha  MP( like  his father ) though his people in DC worked hard to get the same when YSR and Kiran Kumar Reddy was in power . One of his bureau chiefs  virtually was on the job for almost  two years  just to assure it  but failed  as Venky never treated local politicians with respect as he thought his links in the Delhi durbar would swing the job for him.