Mumbai, June 14: The Shaw Wallace boardroom looks different now.

The entire board of SWC, led by Vidya Chhabria, has resigned in favour of Vijay Mallya and his nominees, thus formalising its takeover by the UB group.

The new United Spirits group will have a group turnover of 60 million cases and a retail sale value of Rs 14000 crore (inclusive of excise).

Mallya has anointed trusted UB group hand Sammy D Lalla as managing director. Lalla is a close associate of Mallya’s father and was at the helms at Herbertsons when Kishore Chhabria made hostile bids as managing director of Shaw Wallace.

The new board will have Vijay Mallya as chairman, S. R. Gupte as executive vice-chairman and Ravi Nedungadi as group president.

The United Spirits business, an amalgam of McDowell, Herbertsons, Triumph Distillers Vintners and Shaw Wallace, will have such “humunguous equity that others will find it difficult to compete,” Mallya said.

“Even foreign companies will have to think of UB if they want to enter India,” he added.

“We intend to use the size and strength we command now to redefine the spirits market. We can now speed up the integration process between the UB group and Shaw Wallace and create a unified spirits company. The resulting benefits for consumers, suppliers, shareholders and other stakeholders are enormous,” said Mallya.

“We do not look at the process as a classic takeover, but as a combination of businesses. In the coming days, we will adopt a “best of breed” approach,” he added.

The state governments should realise that this is the goose that lays the golden eggs. Excise collected from the spirits business is second only to sales tax collected in the country and he wants laws to be further liberalised.