Kochi sheds sweat for a new team combination,can play IPL

Rendezvous will no more run the franchise. It will be run by Kochi Cricket Pvt Ltd,a new company incorporated only around a fortnight ago.

In a statement issued after a two-hour-long governing council meeting held in Mumbai,BCCI secretary N Srinivasan said: “The IPL Governing Council confirmed that the Kochi Franchisee had satisfactorily responded to the notice issued to them and decided that Kochi Cricket Pvt Ltd would play in the IPL from 2011 onwards.”

“It all happened at the last hour… the last minute,” said Satyajit Gaikwad,Chief Executive Officer of RSWPL,the company that won the Kochi franchise in April this year. “As per the new structure our sweat equity has been diluted from 26 to 10 per cent and the remaining 16 per cent will be equally distributed among all other investors. A new board of directors will be formed soon.”

A top BCCI official said that the Indian cricket board was only concerned about the internal differences between the investors in the Kochi franchise. “We wanted Kochi to solve their investment-related issues and form a company with a clear corporate structure. This,we now believe,they have successfully done.”

The other investors in the Kochi franchise are Anchor Earth Private Limited,Parinee Developers and Properties Private Limited,Filmware Combines Private Limited,Anand Shyam Estates Private Limited and Vivek Venugopal.

Mukesh Patel of Parinee Developers said: “We all are happy with the Governing Council’s decision. We will work hard as a team and decide our future strategy. The stakeholders of the Kochi IPL team will meet on Tuesday and a new board of directors will be formed too.”

On dilution of RSWPL’s equity,Gaikwad said: “We have made the sacrifices in the interest of the team. It was our dream to have a cricket team of ours and today,we have one.”

The bone of contention had been the 26 per cent free equity promised to RSWPL for its efforts to put the franchise together. The investors,led by Anchor Group’s Mehul Shah and Parinee Developers’ Mukesh Patel,wanted this share pruned.

“Their argument was that at the time of bidding,the promoter group included a lot of other individuals,including Sunanda Pushkar,now the wife of former Union minister of state Shashi Tharoor. But after Pushkar and other individuals in the promoter group gave up their stake,the investors argued that free equity promised to the Gaikwads should also be slashed accordingly,” said a person from the investors’ camp.

The Gaikwads,however,were not ready to give up the stake. They also wanted to keep management control in their hands,including the post of the CEO. “If the investors don’t agree to our conditions,we are ready to give up the franchise,” Gaikwad had said around two months ago.

Today,he declared: “All differences are a thing of the past.”

The 16 per cent stake that has been surrendered by the Gaikwads has been proportionately distributed among the rest of the investors. Anchor Group and Parinee Developers have now emerged as the largest stakeholders with 65 per cent share in Kochi Cricket.

According to Gaikwad and Patel,their new CEO could be “professional” — they had earlier approached Sunil Gavaskar for “advice” on constituting and running the team.