The television channel NDTV Ltd. was bought by the Gautam Adani-led Adani Group on Tuesday, August 23. The conglomerate, which has a wide range of corporate interests, announced that it will make an open offer to acquire a further 26% of the company as needed by SEBI.
The Adani Group, which announced in May of this year that it would purchase 49% of digital news source BloombergQuint, wants to increase its media investment by launching a television channel.
The NDTV founders, Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, were not consulted, had no conversations with, or gave their agreement prior to the transaction, according to a notice to the stock exchanges. The Roy family still owns 32.26 percent of NDTV.
The Adani Group stated in a press release that its flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd’s subsidiary AMG Media Networks Ltd purchased Vishvapradhan Commercial Pvt Ltd (VCPL) on Tuesday. VCPL had lent NDTV promoter business RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd Rs 403.85 crore in 2009 and 2010. Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy were the owners of RRPR Holding.
In exchange for this interest-free loan, RRPR gave VCPL warrants that could be exchanged for a 99.9% ownership in RRPR. The RRPR owns a 29.18% interest in NDTV. Notably, VCPL had raised money from Reliance Strategic Ventures, a fully-owned subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd., in order to issue the loan to RRPR.
“Without any conversation with NDTV or its founder-promoters, a notice has been delivered upon them by VCPL, claiming that it (VCPL) has exercised its rights to acquire 99.50% control of RRPR, the promoter-owned firm that owns 29.18% of NDTV,” NDTV Ltd. stated in a statement to the stock exchanges.
The Adani Group made an open offer to purchase an additional 26% of VCPL after purchasing it for Rs 113.75 crore. Per share, the group is providing Rs 294. On the BSE, the NDTV stock closed on Tuesday at Rs 366.20, up 2.6% from the previous day’s finish.
Adani Group-owned VCPL reported the addition of three directors to its board on August 23 in its most recent filing with the Registrar of Companies: Sanjay Pugalia, Senthil Chengalvarayan, and Sudipta Bhattacharya. The CEO of AMG Media Networks Ltd. is Pugalia.
In order to lead its media company, Adani Media Ventures, the Adani Group, which has been considering entering the mainstream media market, engaged journalist Pugalia last September. Pugalia presided over Quint Digital Media, the company that ran BloombergQuint. “AMNL aims to provide information and expertise to Indian people, customers, and foreigners with an interest in India.
NDTV is the best broadcast and digital platform to carry out our goal due to its dominant position in news and strong and diverse reach across genres and geographies. Pugalia stated in the release, “We look forward to enhancing NDTV’s leadership in news delivery.
