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India's competition regulator approved Lakshmi Mittal's purchase of three cricket franchises on Wednesday, in a transaction valued at about $1.65 billion.
One of them is South African. The Competition Commission of India cleared the acquisition of Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League, Paarl Royals in South Africa's SA20 and Barbados Royals in the Caribbean Premier League, removing the last significant obstacle to a deal announced in May.
Mittal's family takes about 75% through Westview Cricket, a company registered in Britain. Adar Poonawalla, who runs the Serum Institute of India, takes around 18% through Poonawalla Sports and Fitness. Existing investors including Manoj Badale, who has owned the Rajasthan franchise since it was created, keep roughly 7%.
All three teams sit under EM Sporting Holdings, a Mauritius-incorporated company that controls Royal Multisport, which operates the Indian franchise, alongside Paarl Royals Limited and Barbados Royals Limited.
The commission asked for further information in August before clearing it. The buyers argued they had no overlapping businesses in India.
What the South African piece brings is a foothold in a league that did not exist four years ago. The SA20 launched in 2023 with all six franchises bought by IPL owners, and Paarl Royals was the Rajasthan group's entry into it. The structure means South African cricket's premier competition is now largely controlled from India, and Mittal has just become one of the largest owners in it.
The return on the original investment is substantial.
Badale's Emerging Media Ventures paid $67 million for Rajasthan Royals in 2008, the cheapest of the eight original IPL franchises. The team won the inaugural tournament that year and has not won it since. The group built around it, taking in South Africa and Barbados, is now worth close to twenty-five times that.
An American bid got there first and collapsed. A consortium led by Kal Somani, the Walmart heir Rob Walton and the Hamp family was reported in March to have agreed $1.63 billion for the group, before the deal fell apart and Mittal and Poonawalla came in at $1.65 billion two months later.
Mittal is 76 and was born in Sadulpur, in Rajasthan itself.
He runs ArcelorMittal as executive chairman, owns 38% of the world's second-largest steelmaker, chairs the stainless steel producer Aperam and co-owns the English football club Queens Park Rangers. Forbes ranked him third-richest in the world in 2005, the first Indian citizen to reach its global top ten.
He left Britain in 2025 after thirty years there and now lives between Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, part of a wider departure of wealthy residents following changes to how the country taxes them.
Poonawalla is 45 and runs the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world by volume. He had separately said he intended to bid for Royal Challengers Bengaluru when Diageo began exploring a sale of that franchise.
Kumar Sangakkara coaches the Rajasthan side and Riyan Parag captains it.
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