Adar Poonawalla makes his expression of interest to buy RCB, saying that he will make a ‘strong and competitive’ bid.
The chairman of Poonawalla Fincorp and CEO of the Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla, has indicated interest in purchasing Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB).
“Over the next few months, will be putting in a strong and competitive bid for RCB, one of the best teams in the IPL,” Poonawalla posted on X on Thursday. In October last year, he had also said on X that “at the right price, RCB is a great team.”
The 45-year-old Poonawalla is in charge of Serum Institute of India, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical corporation that is the biggest vaccine manufacturer in the world by volume.
The global alcoholic beverage corporation that owns RCB, Diageo, was said to have started the process of selling its ownership of the team in November of last year.
Diageo stated that it was carrying out a “strategic review” of its investment in RCB through Royal Challengers Sports Private Limited (RCSPL), the parent company that owns the men’s and women’s teams, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), India’s market regulator. It is anticipated that the review will be finished by March 31, 2026.
When the IPL was first introduced in 2008, RCB was the second most costly franchise among the most well-known teams, having been purchased for USD 111.6 million.
This season, the RCB men’s team, which won its first IPL title in 2025, will aim to repeat. The RCB women’s squad is presently leading the points table in the 2026 WPL season after winning the WPL in 2024.
The location of RCB’s IPL 2026 home games is still unclear, though, as the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru is still uncertain due to the aftermath of the stampede outside the stadium that claimed 11 lives during RCB’s triumph celebrations last June.