In a recent development, NDTV has offered the Adani Group two seats on its board for the pre-open offer the conglomerate had acquired in the channel.
The Gautam Adani-led Adani Group acquired the Delhi-based news channel NDTV or New Delhi Television Ltd. Following this, there was a widespread conversation about how the last remaining anti-government voice was also going to be stifled by this takeover.
NDTV, established in 1988, is one of India’s first and largest private producers of news. It has a reputation for being anti-establishment and rightly so has been critical of the government from time to time, questioning it on relevant matters. Now with the Adani takeover, many are sure that the broadcaster’s journalistic independence coming under direct threat.
How did this takeover fall through? Let’s try to understand
The Adani Group currently holds a 100% stake in Vishvapradhan Commercial Private Limited (VCPL). Earlier it was a shell company of Reliance Industries Ltd. The company was then taken over by Mahendra Nahata, a director at Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, who then sold it to the Adani Group.
VCPL is a company from which Radhika Roy Prannoy Roy (RRPR) Holding Pvt Ltd, the holding company of NDTV, had secured an interest-free loan of Rs 400 crore. Radhika and Prannoy Roy are the founders of NDTV.
The nature of the loan was such that it gave the right to VCPL to convert the loan into 100% equity any time it wanted. This means that VCPL has a 99% stake in RRPR.
RRPR holds 29.18% shares in NDTV. This gives VCPL direct rights over 29.18% of shares of NDTV held by RRPR. As per the loan agreement, both Radhika and Prannoy Roy had to transfer equity shares from RRPR Holding to VCPL due to the failure of loan repayment.
The Adani group purchased VCPL indirectly acquiring a 29.18% stake in NDTV by converting the loan given to RRPR into 100% equity.
Now, with a 29.18 per cent indirect stake in NDTV Ltd, Adani Group launched an open offer of ₹493 crores to acquire an additional 26 per cent stake in NDTV. This means that shareholders of NDTV can sell their shares to the Adani group.
Combining the 29.18% and 26% shares, it takes up the Adani Group’s share in NDTV to 55.18%.
Radhika and Prannoy Roy have already resigned as directors of RRPR Holding Private Limited. They both, however, still hold a 32.26 per cent stake in NDTV as promoters. Both of them also continue to be board members of the news channel.
Following this game of takeover, Ravish Kumar, Senior Executive Editor at NDTV India, a reputed and vocal news anchor and journalist, known to be critical of the government resigned from the channel. He dropped his resignation papers immediately a day after the Roys resigned as the directors.
Ravish Kumar joined NDTV in 1996 and has been working for the channel since. He is famous for his news-based shows such as Hum Log, Ravish ki Report, Des Ki Baat, and Prime Time. The journalist has been awarded twice with the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award, along with the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2019. Ravish will now meet his audience through a much more liberal and independent platform, on his official YouTube channel.
Now, with all the tables turned in NDTV, it will be interesting to see how the channel’s selection of news, and narrative towards the party in power changes.
