McDowell and Company, a leading Indian maker of alcoholic spirits, said it had acquired a majority stake in a brewery which has a licence to use a whisky brand owned by Diageo Plc.

Bangalore-based McDowell, part of liquor baron Vijay Mallya's UB Group led by beer maker United Breweries Ltd, said in a statement late on Tuesday that it acquired 85 per cent of Triumph Distilleries and Vintners Pvt Ltd at around Rs 600 million from a clutch of investors.

The remaining 15 per cent would be held by Triumph's Chief Executive Officer Deepak Roy. McDowell said it has a call option to buy out the stake at the end of two years at a price to be carried out by a mutually acceptable valuer.

Triumph recently acquired an Indian licence to use Gilbey's Green Label, a brand owned by Diageo.

McDowell's shares were trading at Rs 44.70, up 2.2 per cent late morning, while the benchmark Sensex was up 0.6 per cent.

Mallya said in the statement that the acquisition would help UB Group's spirits division to edge closer to the number four spot among world's leading distillers.

Last week, the group said its alcoholics spirits division had entered the global top five by sales in a ranking by industry researcher Impact International.

Besides McDowell, privately-held Herbertsons Ltd is also part of the division which had sales of 26 million cases in the year to March 2002, accounting for about 4.3 per cent of the world market.