Mumbai: Reliance Industries (RIL) said on Wednesday it had shown an interest in combining the media business with Zee Entertainment Enterprises but imposed a plan of differences between the founder of the company and its largest shareholders, Investasco.
RIL’s interest in Zee came out in an open place after Investco revealed it was facilitated by talks between Indian conglomerates and the founder of the company.
The American Fund named RIL after Zee revealed that Investco has approached promoters with proposals to combine companies with certain entities owned by the “big” Indian group that was not named.
RIL SAID ZEE FOUNDERS – Punit Goenka and Family – have demanded options to increase their interests in the entity joining through subscribing to Warrants, but American funds disagree.
Investco insenses that the founders can always increase their part in the entity joining through market purchases.
“We …
have never used hostile transactions,” said Ril.
“We regret being pulled into a dispute between Zee and Investco.” The media drama and entertainment RIL is through Viacom18 Media, joint venture 51:49 between TV18 which is broadcast and Viacom based in the US.
Viacom18 Media operates a number of entertainment channels such as colors, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and Nickelodeon.
JV also deals with film production and content syndication.
Investco said the potential of the transaction proposed by Reliance (‘Group Strategic’ was referenced but not identified in the October 12 2021 communication from ZEE) negotiated by and between Goenka and others related to the Zee promoter family.
“The role of Investco, as the largest single shareholder of Zee, is to help facilitate the potential transaction and no more,” said the fund.
RIL confirmed that Investco has helped in regulating discussions with the founder of ZEE and made “broad proposal” to combine its medium properties with zee on “reasonable valuation”.
Zee refused the offer of RIL for a fear of assessment and said that it would result in losses for shareholders.
The latest statement and clarification are the latest in the growth of the Bitter Spat between Investco and Zee after the former who was called for a boat reshuffle, including the overthrow of MD Goenka.
Zee alleged that Investco tried to take over the company with the “way of clandestine” even because of the merger talks with the Sony Pictures network.
“Sony’s interests recently, and the interests of previous dependence, must be reminders for all Zee shareholders about the great value located in this company, many different from gloomy performance under the leadership and the board last during the last few years,” said Investco.