A host of buyers are eying Ramoji Rao’s ETV boquet of television channels. Months after talks between Sony Television and Eenadu TV (ETV) fell through, the Raghav Bahl-controlled Network18 Group is inching close to a deal with ETV, according to Business Standard.
However, a latest Time of India report says Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter Capital may be in the fray for Eenadu TV, which is mulling a strategic merger or sale of its assets. Jupiter will firm up its interest once the Eenadu promoters decide on the final contours of a potential deal, whether they want to divest the entire broadcasting business or sell a part of it, sources added.
BS report says that Network18 Group is likely to merge ETV’s bouquet of 11 regional channels and one Telugu news channel with itself through a share swap.
ETV Network’s bouquet of infotainment channels in different languages has an exhaustive pan-India presence across states.
The transaction is also likely to allow existing investors like Nimesh Kampani of JM Financial to exit. In 2008, Kampani came on board of Ushodaya Enterprises, the publisher of flagship Eenadu, the largest selling Telugu newspaper.
Kampani’s structured transaction (including debt and equity), potentially valued at Rs 2,600 crore for a close to 40 per cent stake, had then helped Ushodaya wriggle out of its financial troubles.
It might be recalled that YSR Congress leader Smt Vijaya alleged in her petition to AP High Court that Kampani was a front for Reliance’s Mukesh Ambani, who came to the rescue of Ramoji because the latter was a benami of Chandrababu Naidu. Reliance was paying back for the help rendered by Naidu in KG Basin deal, Smt Vijaya contended in her petition.
Ramoji does not have cash reserves to buy back Kampani’s stake and hence the sale has become inevitable.
