Winning Bizness Desk
Mumbai. Asia's richest businessman Gautam Adani is all set to take over NDTV. Actually, NDTV had taken a loan from Adani some time back that provisioned that in the case of non-payment of this debt, it can be acquired. on Tuesday, the Adani Group announced that it is going to buy 29.18% stake in NDTV. This indirect participation will be done through Vishwapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL), a subsidiary of AMG Media Network Limited (AMNL). AMG Media is a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL).
Adani Group will also make an open offer of Rs 493 crore for an additional 26% stake in NDTV at Rs 294 per share. AMNL CEO Sanjay Puglia said, “This acquisition is a milestone. AMNL seeks to empower Indian citizens, consumers and those interested in India with information and knowledge. NDTV is the best broadcast and digital platform to fulfill our vision.
The Adani Group announced this at around 6.10 pm on Tuesday. About two hours later, the CEO of NDTV issued a mail saying that the news of Adani joining the media group is shocking. We were neither informed nor discussed about this. The group's CEO has also spoken of taking regulatory and legal steps in this matter. AMNL's subsidiary VCPL holds a warrant from RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd, which gives them the right to convert a 99.99% stake in RRPR. Warrant means a financial contract, which gives the right to buy or sell equity at a certain price before expiry. VCPL has exercised the same warrant to acquire 99.5% stake in RRPR. The promoter group company of NDTV is RRPR, which holds 29.18% stake in NDTV. Based on this, the Adani Group has indirectly got 29.18% stake in NDTV.
NDTV is a leading media house in India, which runs three national news channels – NDTV 24×7, NDTV India and NDTV Profit. It also has a strong online presence and is one of the most followed news handles on social media with over 35 million followers across different platforms.
Adani Group has done 32 deals worth 1.31 lakh crore in last one year
After investing in coal and infrastructure projects for a long time, the Adani Group is now diversifying its business by acquiring companies ranging from rice to travel portals, media, green energy and cement. It is now one of the largest trading groups in the Asia-Pacific region. Most of the deals the Adani Group has done over the past year are infrastructure and green energy companies. These include from cement to ports and energy projects. Recently, the Adani Group bought stake in Ambuja and ACC cement companies from Holcim, the world's largest cement company, for about Rs 81 thousand crore.
Adani's net worth around Rs 11 lakh crore
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Gautam Adani's net worth is currently around Rs 11 lakh crore. He is the fourth richest businessman in the world. Only Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Bernard Arnault (LVMH) are above him in terms of net worth. Adani Group had formed a company named AMG Media Network Limited on April 26, 2022. In this, provision of initial authorized and paid-up share capital of one lakh rupees has been made for running the media business. Through this, many media related projects including publishing, advertising, broadcasting will be handled.
