New Delhi: India’s richest billionaire Gautam Adani’s 13-day open offer for acquiring an additional 26 per cent stake in New Delhi Television (NDTV), which closed on December 5, made him the single-largest shareholder in the news broadcaster. Adani Group company Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited picked up 8.27 per cent stake in the company in the open offer, NDTV said on Monday.
The open offer was triggered after VCPL acquired a 99.5 per cent stake in NDTV’s promoter group company RRPR Holding Private Limited (RRPR), translating to 29.18 per cent of the ownership in the news company. The closure of the 13-day offer raised industrialist Adani’s stake in NDTV to 37.45 per cent.
NDTV has shared the revised shareholding pattern of the promoters/promoter group:
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Prannoy Roy: 15.94% (1,02,76,991 equity shares)
Radhika Roy: 16.32% (1,05,24,249 equity shares)
RRPR Holding Private Limited (an indirect subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited): 29.18% (1,88,13,928 equity shares)
Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited (a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited): 8.27% (5,330,792 equity shares)
The news broadcaster said that it has received a disclosure dated December 17 filed by VCPL informing about the acquisition of 53,30,792 equity shares having face value of Rs 4 each at a price of Rs 294 per share of NDTV pursuant to the open offer.
“Payment of consideration to the public shareholders whose shares were accepted in the open offer was completed by Acquirer on December 15, 2022. Accordingly, in terms of the SEBI (SAST) Regulations, the offer period for the said open offer concluded on December 15, 2022,” NDTV said in an exchange filing.
Adani Group on NDTV board
Few days after Adani became the single-largest shareholder in the news broadcaster, NDTV offered two seats on its board of directors to the Adani Group. The NDTV board recently gave its nod to a proposal to invite the conglomerate’s RRPR Holding Private Ltd to nominate two Directors.
The appointment will be considered in the next board meeting scheduled to be held on December 23.
Adani’s open offer for NDTV
The Gautam Adani-led conglomerate acquired about 53.27 lakh share shares of NDTV, a third of the open offer size of 1.67 crore shares. With this, the industrialist has become the biggest shareholder in NDTV with a 37.44 per cent stake, followed by the founder-promoters Radhika and Prannoy Roy, who have a 32.26 per cent in the company.
By virtue of it being the largest shareholding of NDTV, Adani Group has also got the right to nominate a chairman of the news broadcaster. But NDTV in the filing did not acknowledge Adani’s shareholding post-open offer. Prannoy Roy, currently, is the chairperson of NDTV, while his wife Radhika is an executive director.
The Adani conglomerate had acquired VCPL in August, which had lent Rs 403.8 crore to RRPR Holding. RRPR had issued warrants to VCPL that allowed it to convert the warrants into a 99.9 per cent stake in it in case the loan was not paid back. VCPL exercised warrants to buy a 99.5 per cent stake in the NDTV promoter.
