Venky's Limited is a
subsidiaryA subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
of
V H GroupThe VH Group is INR 3 billion in Market cap and INR 8 billion in revenues. The group is highly diversified with interests in poultry, processed food, animal vaccines, pharma etc....
, an
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n company that specialises in
chickenThe chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
meat processing, and pharmaceutical products for both poultry and human usage.
History
Founded at pune in maharashtra as
Venkateshwara Hatcheries Private Limited. in 1971 by the Rao family, it mainly produced day-old layer and broiler chicks for the poultry markets of
South IndiaSouth India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
.
Status
Today the diversified
VH Group is a Rs. 5000
croreA crore is a unit in the Indian number system equal to ten million , or 100 lakhs. It is widely used in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan....
conglomerate and a large
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n poultry company. The group has diversified into 30 fields including: poultry, processed food, animal vaccines, pharma and healthcare products. The company's Specific Pathogen Free Egg unit (in technical collaboration with SPAFAS Inc. USA) is among four such units in the world and the only one of its kind in the developing world.
ForbesForbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
ranked Venky's as 67 among the 100 best global small companies in the year 1999-2000.
In December 2010 the group launched Venky's Exprs, a ready to eat chicken outlet, in
PunePune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
, as part of the company's ambitious plans for expansion.
Blackburn Rovers Football Club
On 19 November 2010, the company completed the takeover of Premier League club
Blackburn RoversBlackburn Rovers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Blackburn, Lancashire. The team currently competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football....
for between £47 million-£53 million deal under the name
Venky's London Limited.
Following the takeover Venkatesh and Balaji Rao greeted fans by appearing on the
Ewood ParkEwood Park is a football stadium in the English town of Blackburn, Lancashire, and is the home of Blackburn Rovers Football Club — one of the founder members of the Football League and Premier League. Rovers have played there since they moved from Leamington Street in the summer of 1890. The...
pitch before the match against Aston Villa on 21 November 2010. Their first match as owners ended in a 2-0 victory for Blackburn. After a 2-1 defeat to
BoltonBolton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the area of Horwich in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester. They began their current spell in the Premier League in 2001....
, Venky's sacked Sam Allardyce and replaced him with First Team Coach Steve Kean. Blackburn survived relegation on the final game of the season defeating Wolves 3-2 and finishing 15th.
After 8 matches of the 2011-2012 season Blackburn Rovers sat bottom of the table on 5 points. Despite vociferous calls from many of the club's supporters for Steve Kean to be replaced, he remains as manager.
Sponsorship
Venky's are one of the official sponsors of Champions League Twenty20
cricketCricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
tournament which is held yearly among the best
Twenty20Twenty20 is a form of cricket, originally introduced in England for professional inter-county competition by the England and Wales Cricket Board , in 2003. A Twenty20 game involves two teams, each has a single innings, batting for a maximum of 20 overs. Twenty20 cricket is also known as T20 cricket...
regional cricket clubs and teams of the world.
External links