Gautam Adani will soon become the owner of NDTV: Adani Group announces new date for open offer, will buy 26% additional stake in media firm.
Adani Group has announced the new date for the proposed open offer to buy 26% (1.67 crore shares) additional public stake in media firm NDTV. The news broadcaster has given this information in a filing to the stock exchanges (BSE-NSE).
Open offer from November 22 to December 5
As per the filing, the open offer of Adani Group will now open for subscription on November 22 and close on December 5. Earlier, Adani Group had fixed the previous timeline from October 17 to November 1 for the open offer.
There is an open offer of Rs 492.81 crore.
The price of the open offer has been fixed at Rs 294 per share. If 294 Rs. If it gets fully subscribed at a price of Rs. 50,000, Adani Group’s total stake in NDTV will be 55%. This open offer is worth Rs 492.81 crore.
Acquired 29.18% stake in NDTV in August
On 23 August, Adani Group acquired 29.18% stake in NDTV through the acquisition of VCPL, which holds 99.99% stake in RRPR Holding. Following this, Adani Group firms – Vishwapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL) along with AMG Media Networks and Adani Enterprises have proposed to acquire an additional 26%.
After the announcement of acquiring 29.18% stake in NDTV, NDTV had said that the deal cannot go ahead without SEBI’s nod. He said that in an order passed on 27 November 2020, SEBI had banned the founders of NDTV – Radhika and Prannoy Roy from the securities market for 2 years. This ban will end on 26 November 2022.
However, the Adani Group rubbished NDTV’s claim. He said the promoter unit RRPR Holding is not part of the regulator’s order barring founder promoters Prannoy and Radhika Roy from trading in the securities market. VCPL had said that RRPR is not a party to the SEBI order dated November 27, 2020 and the restrictions do not apply to it.
Understand the whole matter in 5 points
RRPR Holding is the promoter company of NDTV. Vishwapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL) is a subsidiary of AMG Media Network Limited (AMNL). AMNL is a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL). AEL is the flagship company of the Adani Group. Accordingly, the control of VCPL is with Adani Enterprises.
RRPR Holding Private Limited (RRPR stands for Radhika Roy, Prannoy Roy), the promoter company of NDTV, had taken a corporate loan of Rs 403.85 crore from VCPL in 2009-10 to repay the second debt. In lieu of this loan, VCPL got RRPR warrants. Warrants can be converted into shares as per rules.
Under the same authority, VCPL issued notice on 23 August for conversion of 1,990,000 warrants into 1,990,000 shares. As per the terms of the warrant exercise, RRPR was to allot the shares to VCPL within 2 days of the notice i.e. by August 25. However, NDTV expressed its inability to do so, citing the Sebi order of 2020.
Since RRPR is the promoter of NDTV and holds 29.18% stake (18,813,928 shares) in NDTV, Adani Group has indirectly got 29.18% stake in NDTV. According to SEBI rules, whenever a company acquires more than 25% shares of another company, it has to make an open offer.
VCPL has entered into an open offer with AMNL and Adani Enterprises for an additional 16,762,530 shares of NDTV. The open offer price of the shares is Rs 294. Right now the share price of NDTV is around Rs 352. Is. When Adani Group informed about this takeover on 23 August, the share price was Rs 376. was close to.
