NDTV shares continue to climb upwards as Adani group takes over

NDTV shares have been witnessing a bullish trend since early July when there was already buzz that the Adani group might be looking at takeover of the media group.

NDTV founders Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy have resigned as the directors of promoter group vehicle RRPR Holding Private Limited as the Adani Group neared takeover of the television channel.

Having taken control of RRPR Holdings, the NDTV promoter company holding 29.18% equity in the broadcaster, Adani Group through its subsidiary Vishvapradhan Commercial Pvt. Ltd (VCPL) could push to nominate its directors on the NDTV board.

And though the open offer didn’t attract any investor interest for the second straight session on Wednesday, Adani Group has become the single largest shareholder of NDTV, taking it a step closer to wresting control of the company.

Together with acquiring a 29.18% stake in NDTV by taking control of RRPR Holdings from the Roys, Adani Group has acquired 8.26% of the company’s equity, as on 30 November, through an open offer triggered after it bought VCPL in late August. An open offer is triggered when an entity acquires more than 25% in a company.

This takes Adani Group shareholding through its wholly-owned subsidiary VCPL to 37.44%, making it NDTV’s single-largest shareholder, followed by Radhika and Prannoy Roy who hold a combined 32.26%. 

RRPR appointed two Adani Group executives, Sudipta Bhattacharya and Sanjay Pugalia, to the board, as well as Senthil Chengalvarayan, a journalist who is an independent director at Quintillion Business Media Pvt., another media firm in which Adani bought a stake in earlier this year.

Adani is now one step closer to gaining a larger footprint in India’s media sector as part of his broader diversification spree to expand his empire beyond coal mining and ports into airports, data centers, cement and digital services.