How Adani acquired a firm controlled by an Ambani aide to launch an aggressive takeover bid in 2022.

How Adani acquired a firm controlled by an Ambani aide to launch an aggressive take over bid in 2022.

The Adani Group, headed by industrialist Gautam Adani, is planning to make an open provide to purchase a further 26% of NDTV’s shares. Adani is rumored to be linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As a result, it would effectively have the maximum of ownership over one of the most well-known media outlets found in India and one of the few that still criticize the Modi government.

On Tuesday, Adani Enterprises exposed that it would use a subsidiary business to buy a 29.18% interest in the NDTV group.

According to a statement by the media company, NDTV founders Radhika Roy and Prannoy Roy, two journalists, were surprised by the revelation. However, Reliance India Limited, the company headed by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man until Adani surpassed him earlier this year, planted the seeds for the takeover almost 15 years ago.

The Reliance relationship

AMG Media Networks Limited, a fully-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, paid Rs113.74 crore on Tuesday to acquire 100% of the stock holdings in Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited. Adani Enterprises is buying NDTV stock through this company.

Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited, a 2008 incorporation, describes itself because a management and advisory services firm with no assets. In 2009, it made Radhika Roy Prannoy Roy Private Limited, a company that owned a 29 percent stake in NDTV, an unsecured money offer of Rs. 403,85 crore.

For its part, Vishvapradhan Commerce Private Limited received the funds in the same fiscal year in the form of an advance from a different business called Shinano Commercial Private Limited.

For its part, Shinano had got the funds from Reliance Industrial Investment and Holdings Limited, a Reliance India Group member, in the form of an advance. Reliance Industrial Ventures and Holdings Limited’s Shinano company at the time was a wholly owned subsidiary.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs represents that all of these businesses were interconnected when the transactions took place. Shinano, with whom it shared an address, and another business called Teesta Retail Private Limited, both dominated by Reliance India Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited, were the owners of Vishvapradhan.

Directors of Vishvapradhan were prominent executives at Reliance India Limited at the time.

However, according to statutory filings the company submitted to the corporate affairs department in 2012, Vishvapradhan’s ownership changed. A member of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, a division of Reliance India Limited, Mahendra Nahata’s Nextwave Televenture Pvt . ltd. and Skyblue Gain complete Private Limited were the new owners.

At the same time, Nahata, the owner of Eminent Networks Private Limited, has put in Rs 50 crore in the company, and transferred ownership of the credit Vishvapradhan owing to Shinano.

After receiving the Rs. 50 crore from Vishvapradhan, Shinano received it and stated in its corporate papers that the debt had been repaid. It is unclear how that occurred, though, because Vishvapradhan had only paid back 50 percent of the advance’s original 400 billion rupees.

According to documents submitted by Vishvapradhan to the Corporate Affairs Ministry this year, Nextwave Televenture held the company wholly up until Tuesday, when the Adani group acquired it. The records have told that NDTV may have never paid back the loan it received from Vishvapradhan.

It wouldn’t have mattered. Vishvapradhan could convert the money into 99.9% of the stocks in Radhika Roy Prannoy Roy Ltd “at any moment across the money time or after that without requiring further any act or deed on the side of the lender,” according to Caravan’s 2015 report. Tuesday saw the occurrence of this.

Arrival of Adani

This means that the Roys had lost control of NDTV long ago and that its takeover was inevitable. The Adani Group, not Reliance, which had a blade dangling over the Roys for 13 years, delivered the company’s fatal blow, which is astonishing.

The Roys continue to own a larger share of NDTV than that of the Adani Group at 32.27 percent. However, this could soon alter. The LTS Investment Vehicle, which holds stock in different Adani enterprises, reportedly has a 9.75 percent stake in NDTV, according to an article in the Indian Express. Four other owners own a total of 7.11 percent of NDTV. According to Indian Express, the Adani Group would own more than 46% of NDTV if these two investors sold their stock in the offer.

Gautam Adani bought a company on Tuesday that had previously been taken over by his competitor Mukesh Ambani and had been under the control of one of his close advisors for a decade to carry out an aggressive takeover of what is arguably India’s most reliable television news channel—a channel with which Modi has not engaged since becoming prime minister.

The country’s most wealthy man, Gautam Adani, has started an unfriendly takeover of NDTV, which has raised queries about the future of one of the news outlets willing to criticize Narendra Modi’s governance.

A division of Adani’s big conglomerate announced on Tuesday that it would be purchasing a 29.18% interest in NDTV in a complicated agreement involving one of the network’s investors, pulling off a surprising coup that caught the network’s well-known founders off guard.

The action results in an offer for a share of an additional 26% under Indian takeover legislation. In the event that it is effective, Adani would still hold a 55% controlling interest.

One of the most well-liked news companies in the country, NDTV is there to be one of the few media companies that criticize Modi’s BJP-led government policies. Modi has a close relationship with Gautam Adani and has been seen flying aboard Adani’s business aircraft.

The transaction was described to be “nothing but the consolidation of economic and political power, and a blatant move to suppress any of the pretenses of an independent media,” according to Jairam Ramesh, the communications director for the opposing Congress party.

“From NDTV’s claims, it looks like this may not be a desired takeover, that is according to negotiated terms and process, and may wind up being an aggressive acquisition,” said Dipti Lavya Swain, founder, and senior partner of DLS Law Offices.

The most reputable news anchor and broadcaster in India, Ravish Kumar, who serves to be the senior executive editor of NDTV, is a network member.

However, one media questioner has stated that the merger might cause NDTV members to leave. According to author and media mogul Minhaz Merchant, “NDTV was blatantly pro-Congress and anti-BJP.” According to the forecast, the channel’s editorial stance will shift from left to center as a result of the Adani takeover.

In addition, the acquisition will pit Adani with his wealthy rival Mukesh Ambani, head of the sizable Reliance Industries company, which is already a well-established force in the nation’s media industry thanks to its ownership of Network18.

Adani, whose wealth has increased majorly in recent years due to investing in solar energy, took his first bet on the media industry in March when he acquired a minority stake in the regional digital business news portal Quintillion. However, the proposed NDTV offer has represented Adani’s most high-profile media bet yet.

According to Adani Group executive Sanjay Pugalia, “NDTV is the most appropriate broadcast and digital platform to focus on.”

Although Adani withheld financial information about the group’s intended purchase of a 29.18% interest, it did state that their open call would be for 294 rs ($3.68) for each NDTV share or 4.93 billion rupees. The difference between that deal price and NDTV’s Tuesday closing of 369.75 rupees is 20.5%.

edited and proofread by nikita sharma