Adani Group acquires NDTV founders Roys’ 27.26% equity stake

India

oi-Prakash KL

New Delhi, Dec 30: The Adani Group has acquired 27.26 per cent equity stake in NDTV from the promoters (Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy), thereby acquring the majority stake in the media firm, the company said in a statement.

“RRPR, an indirect subsidiary of Adani Enterprises and member of the promoter/promoter group of NDTV, has acquired 27.26 per cent equity stake in NDTV from Mr. Prannoy Roy and Mrs. Radhika Roy (“Sellers”) by way of inter-se transfer under Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011,” a statement from the Adani Group said.

The RRPR, the holding company of the NDTV promoters, will now hold 56.45 per cent equity stake in NDTV, as per the statement shared with the stock exchanges.

Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy on December 23 said in a statement that discussions with Gautam Adani had been constructive since the open offer was launched and the suggestions that have been made were accepted by Adani Group chief “positively and with openness”.

Gautam Adani beats Mukesh Ambani to secure top spot in Forbes list of India’s 100 Richest

The AMG Media Network, after the recent open offer, is now the single-largest shareholder in NDTV, according to the statement. “Consequently, with mutual agreement, we have decided to divest most of our shares in NDTV to the AMG Media Network,” it said. “Since the open offer was launched, our discussions with Mr. Gautam Adani have been constructive; all the suggestions we made were accepted by him positively and with openness,” it added. The NDTV founders had proposed to transfer 27.26 per cent of their shares in the media company to the Adani Group.

In August this year, Adani Group announced that it had acquired 29.18 per cent stake in NDTV indirectly. The transaction involved Vishvapradhan Commercial Pvt Ltd converting the warrants of RRPR Holding Private Ltd into equity. The VCPL decided on exercising the warrants, giving it over 99.5 per cent stake in RRPR. VCPL gained this stake in the media group as RRPR owns 29.18 per cent stake in NDTV.

In 2008, the Roys had taken a loan of Rs 540 crore from Indiabulls to fund an open offer they made to buy the shares of NDTV from the market. The Roys had pledged their shares in NDTV as security. Following this they took a loan from ICICI Bank to payback Indiabulls. This time they also pledged shares of NDTV held under RRPR.

Later they again took an unsecured loan from the VCPL to pay the ICICI loan in exchange of warrants of their shares in NDTV. The money which was given by VCPL to RRPR was from a company which was fully owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group. VCPL was later acquired by the Adani Group-led AMG Media Network Ltd.

With inputs from agencies