Richest Indian Gautam Adani's group on Tuesday said it will buy a majority stake in New Delhi Television Ltd, one of the nation's most popular news channels, as it looks to boost media investments as part of an ambitious expansion plan.
Meanwhile the NDTV has issued the statement and said, "Without any discussion with New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) or its founder-promoters, a notice has been served upon them by Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL), stating that it (VCPL) has exercised its rights to acquire 99.50% control of RRPR Holding Private Limited (RRPRH), the promoter-owned Company that owns 29.18% of NDTV."
Until Monday, NDTV had maintained that its promoters were not in talks to sell their stake in the company.
Read the full statement here:
Without any discussion with New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) or its founder-promoters, a notice has been served upon them by Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL), stating that it (VCPL) has exercised its rights to acquire 99.50% control of RRPR Holding Private Limited (RRPRH), the promoter-owned Company that owns 29.18% of NDTV.
The notice from VCPL is based on a loan agreement it entered with NDTV founders Radhika and Prannoy Roy in 2009-10. The notice states that VCPL has exercised its option to convert 19,90,000 warrants into equity shares of RRPRH at ₹ 10/- per share, and that a total of 1.99 crores has been transferred to RRPRH.
The NDTV founders and the Company would like to make it clear that this exercise of rights by VCPL was executed without any input from, conversation with, or consent of the NDTV founders, who, like NDTV, have been made aware of this exercise of rights only today. As recently as yesterday, NDTV had informed the stock exchanges that there was no change in the shareholding of its founders. A copy of that disclosure is here.
RRPRH, which owns 29.18% of NDTV, has been told to transfer within two days all its equity shares to VCPL.
The Company has also received a copy of the Public Announcement by VCPL dated August 23, 2022 of an open offer for acquiring upto 26% of the Voting Share Capital of NDTV at ₹ 294 per share (up to 16,762,530 fully paid-up Equity Shares) per in the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Board of lndia (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011.
An Adani Group firm first acquired a company that in the past was linked to rival billionaire Mukesh Ambani. The particular company had loaned Rs 250 crore to NDTV in 2008-09 and the Adani group firm now exercised the option to convert that debt into a 29.18 per cent stake in the news channel company.
Subsequently, it has launched an open offer for another 26 per cent stake, the group said in a statement.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
