mumbai even as vijay mallya the flamboyant chairman of the ub group prepares to merge his four spirit firms to create united spirits the countrys largest spirits company a clutch of leading private equity funds is making a beeline to pick up stake in the new entity the bangaloreheadquartered group is planning to divest upto 26 stake in united spirits to reduce the debts on its books and to use the funds to expand its business the mumbaibased ambit corporate finance is advising the group on the merger as well as the stake salethe line up of investors include blackstone carlyle fidelity new bridge capital capital international among others so far foreign institutional investors fiis have been passive to the idea of investing in the liquor industry a research analyst said the liquor sector has not seen large scale interest from fiis as it is largely regulated now the consolidation in the spirits industry coupled with the double digit growth in the domestic market has forced the fiis to relook at the sector industry observers saidconfirming the development a ub group executive said a host of foreign institutional investors have shown interest in acquiring stake in united spirits we are currently working out on the integration of the four companies and expect the merger to be completed by 2005end