Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd has officially admitted that it is looking to sell its IPL franchise, Hyderabad’s Deccan Chargers. The Hyderabad based media company has given the mandate to KPMG Corporate Finance to advise on the sale.

The company informed the BSE that KPMG Corporate Finance was mandated to run the process to identify the strategic buyers for Deccan Chargers. Earlier media reports suggested that Australia-based NRI industrialist Vikas Rambal could be one of the potential buyers for a majority stake in Deccan Chargers. An 80% stake in the franchise is held by the publishing house, and the remaining 20% is held by Group M, the media arm of the ad conglomerate WPP.

Earlier reports have indicated that Deccan Chronicle may sell its entire stake for anywhere between $175-200 million. This might still be a premium of 55-70 percent over its acquisition price. Deccan acquired the franchise for $107 million and has paid about $5.8 million as players fees.

The team also paid Andrew Symonds $1.35 million, making him the highest paid player in the league. However Deccan Chargers could not make it in the recent IPL, and they finished at the bottom of the table. Also since then there has been a change of guard at Deccan Chargers with Adam Gilchrist replacing VVS Laxman as the team captain and Robin Sharma being fired as the team coach, the things are likely to change at the team. With some of the franchises like Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals managing to break even or even spinning a profit, the IPL franchise is turning out to be a lucrative business opportunity..

Vikas Rambal, who is sponsoring Champions League Twenty20 side Waca Warriors, is the chairman of Australia’s North West Chemicals and Fertilizers. He had expressed interest in buying an IPL team.

Besides Deccan Chargers, Rajasthan Royals, the IPL champions backed by UK based investment group Blenheim Chalcot, is another franchise which is looking for investment.

A lot of corporates have also showed interest in having their own teams. Sahara Group was said to be interested in Kanpur team and Reliance ADAG in a Ahmedabad team. Future Group is also said to be interested in buying a team. Some banks and financial institutions have also showed an interest in buying IPL team. Some of the names doing the rounds during bidding process included ICICI Venture, Sequoia Capital and India Value Fund. Also international players like Providence, Macquire Bank, DE Shaw, Deutsche Bank, Alcazar & Engelfield have also showed interest.

Since IPL might allow new teams only after a couple of years, this is the only opportunity to buy a team.

Source: contentsutra.com

New Delhi, September 29: VVS Laxman, who led the Deccan Chargers in the inaugural Indian Premier League season, was on Monday replaced by former Australia vice-captain Adam Gilchrist to ‘re-unite the outstanding talent’ of the team which ended at the bottom despite its star-studded line-up.

Laxman had drawn criticism from his team member Shahid Afridi who said Twenty20 cricket was not the forte of the Indian batsman after the team managed only two wins from their 14 matches with the likes of Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs, Scott Styris and Rohit Sharma in its ranks.”Adam Gilchrist commands respect within the team and right around the cricket world. He has redefined the role of wicketkeeper/batsman in modern cricket,” said Tim Wright, Chief Executive of Deccan Chargers in a statement issued in New Delhi.

“I am confident Adam Gilchrist will unite Deccan Chargers’ outstanding talent. Four members of our squad were on the India tour of Sri Lanka, more than any other IPL team, and the quality of our overseas players is well known. These players will play for Gilchrist,” he added.Gilchrist, who averaged 47.60 runs in 96 Test Matches and 35.89 runs in 287 One-Day Internationals, helped Australia win the World Cup three times.The wicketkeeper-batsman holds the world Test record for number of sixes hit (100) and has claimed 472 dismissals behind the stumps.

Adam Gilchrist said, “It’s a tremendous thrill and honour to become captain of the Deccan Chargers. I look forward to working hard with everybody towards making the team successful.”

Source:expressindia.com

Chennai Super Kings scored an easy win over Deccan Chargers and stormed in to the semi finals. Chasing a target of 148, they managed to score it with ease with all batsmen contributing to the team success.Chennai bowlers restricted Deccan Chargers to 147 for 8 which made the task of their batsmen little easy and they coasted pretty well to victory. Raina and Dhoni made valuable contributions to storm in to the semis where they will meet Kings XI Punjab whom they have defeated twice in the league matches.Win for Chennai made sure that Mumbai Indians are out of the Semis. So it would be Rajasthan vs Delhi and Punjab vs Chennai.

In the 54 th match of DLF – IPL, Deccan Chargers batted first and got a poor start as they lost the openers – Gilly and Gibbs at a team score of just 15.The Chennai Super Kings bowler bowled excellent line and length and didnot let the batsmen of Deccan Chargers score freely. Wickets were falling at regular intervals and in they end they managed only 147 runs. Some relief was brought by Venugopal Rao who was the top scorer with 46 run for the Chargers.It looks like a real easy chance for Chennai Super Kings to win the match and assure a berth in the semi finals.

In the match between Deccan Chargers and Chennai Super Kings all th Charger fans would love to see atleast one win by the Deccan’s on the home ground. More over they would like to end it on a winning note where as Chennai Super Kings wish to win the match and built a momentum for the semi finals.

Deccan Chargers (probables): 1 Adam Gilchrist (capt/wk), 2 Herschelle Gibbs, 3 Rohit Sharma, 4 Venugopal Rao, 5 Shahid Afridi, 6 Ravi Teja, 7 Arjun Yadav, 8 Sanjay Bangar, 9 Nuwan Zoysa, 10 RP Singh, 11 P Vijaykumar.

Chennai Super Kings (probables): 1 Parthiv Patel (wk), Stephen Fleming, 3 Suresh Raina, 4 Albie Morkel, 5 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), 6 S Badrinath, 7 Abhinav Mukund/ Joginder Sharma, 8 Manpreet Gony, 9 L Balaji, 10, Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 Makhaya Ntini.

Match Number – 54

Time – 8 pm (20:00 hours IST)

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