United Spirits puts RCB cricket team under strategic review as alcobev giant aims to focus on its core business

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) owner United Spirits Ltd has put the cricket team under strategic review as the alcohol beverage manufacturing giant and Diageo's India arm aims to focus its attention on its core business, according to an exchange filing.

“United Spirits Ltd is initiating a strategic review of the investment in its wholly owned subsidiary, RCSPL (Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited). RCSPL’s business comprises ownership of the ‘Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)’ franchise teams,” said the company in its BSE filing.

The Royal Challengers Sports Pvt. Ltd participates in cricket tournaments like the Men's Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Women's Premier League (WPL).

The BSE filing mentioned that the strategic review process is expected to conclude by 31 March 2026. Managing director and CEO of United Spirits, Praveen Someshwar, said that the company aims to focus its main India operations to provide long-term value to all its stakeholders while looking after the best interests of the cricket team.

“RCSPL has been a valuable and strategic asset for USL, however it’s non-core to our alcobev business. This step reinforces USL’s & Diageo’s commitment to continue reviewing its India enterprise portfolio to enable sustained delivery of long-term value to all its stakeholders, while keeping RCSPL’s best interest in mind,” said Praveen Someshwar, the managing director and CEO of United Spirits.

The company's strategic review of the investment move can also potentially result in the sale of the cricket business, which makes up for the non-core revenues of the alcobev giant.

Will Adar Poonawalla buy RCB?

Mint reported earlier, citing a person aware of the development, that Adar Poonawalla, who is the owner of Serum Institute, is planning to buy the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) cricket team for a valuation of up to $1-1.2 billion.

The deal will potentially value the Royal Challengers deal at over ₹10,600 crore or more than 20 times the cricket team's revenue at the upper end, according to the report.

RCB posted a 21% drop in its revenue from core operations to ₹504 crore as the team played fewer matches in the Men's IPL. The company's profit after tax also dropped 36% to ₹140 crore, which made up for 9% of the income of United Spirits.

Diageo India refused to comment on this development, and emails sent to Adar Poonawalla remained unanswered.

According to a CNBC TV-18 report, Adar Poonawalla aims to acquire the entire RCB franchise rather than just buying a minority stake in the company which runs the IPL team.