Adani will purchase extra NDTV shares in order to equal the founders’ compensation
- ByStartupStory | January 4, 2023
The firm led by Asia’s richest man, Gautam Adani, announced on Tuesday that it would pay NDTV investors who submitted shares in its open offer an additional Rs 48.65 per share to help equal the price it had paid to acquire a stake from the news broadcaster’s founders.
In a stock exchange filing, Adani Enterprises announced that it would pay an additional Rs 48.65 per NDTV share to shareholders who had sold their shares in an open offer between November 22 and December 5. This will bring the payout to Rs 342.65 per share and bring it in line with the price it paid to acquire Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy’s stake.
RRPR Holdings, a business formed by the Roys and using their initials in its name, received a Rs 403 crore interest-free loan from Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited in exchange for warrants that allowed it to purchase a stake in the newsgroup at any time in 2009–2010. Those rights were exercised by the Adani Group in August last year, according to NDTV at the time.
As a result, the Adani group acquired ownership of RRPR Holdings, which owned a 29.18% share in NDTV. After that, it launched an open offer to public shareholders to buy an additional 26%.
That open offer was made at a cost of Rs 294 per share. Additionally, it discovered individuals eager to sell approximately 53 lakh shares, or 8.27 percent of the company’s shares, despite the open offer price being at a significant discount to the stock’s market price.
The dual deals increased the Adani Group’s ownership of the company beyond that of founder Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika. And last week, Adani Group paid Rs. 342.65 per share to acquire 27.26 percent of Roys’ 32.26 percent shareholding in the company. Roys received a total of Rs 602 crore.
With the exception of a 2.5% interest, Prannoy Roy sold all of his 15.94% stake in NDTV. In addition, his wife, Radhika Roy, sold all but 2.5% of her 16.32% interest in NDTV.
According to a regulatory filing, the Adani group now owns 64.71 percent of New Delhi Television Ltd. (NDTV). After that, Roys left the NDTV board. The company’s chairman was Prannoy Roy.
Following its acquisition of Radhika Roy Prannoy Roy (RRPR) Holdings Pvt Ltd, the Adani group nominated two directors for the NDTV board, who were later replaced by two further nominees.
Aman Kumar Singh and Sunil Kumar, both retired IAS officers, have been nominated to the NDTV board of directors.
The two worked for Chhattisgarh’s chief minister from 2003 to 2018, Raman Singh of the BJP. Aman Singh, the principal secretary to previous Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, resigned from his position after the BJP lost power in 2018. Sunil Kumar, Chhattisgarh’s Chief Secretary, retired in 2014.
Aman Singh is in charge of corporate communications; however, it is unknown what Sunil Kumar’s specific position is within the Adani Group. Sanjay Pugalia and Senthil Sinniah Chengalvarayan were earlier named by the Adani group as its directors on the NDTV board.
At the Adani Group, Pugalia, a former journalist, serves as CEO and editor-in-chief of media projects. A journalist named Chengalvarayan serves as an independent director at Quintillion Business Media Pvt., a different media company in which Adani invested last year.
As part of a larger diversification drive that has seen the conglomerate expand beyond coal mining and ports into airports, data centers, cement, and digital services, NDTV will offer Adani Group a footprint in the media sector.
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