Adani Enterprises on Wednesday announced the removal of the entire board of directors of NDTV, a day after the television channel’s founders Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy resigned as directors of promoter group Vehicle. RRPR Holding Private Limited,
However, the Roy family still holds 32.26 per cent stake in NDTV as promoters and has not resigned from the news channel’s board.
The flagship Adani firm announced the Board of Directors of RRPR through a stock exchange filing.
“We wish to inform that VCPL has been issued 1,990,000 Equity Shares of face value of Rs 10 each by RRPR Holding Private Limited on November 28, 2022, representing 99.50% of the paid-up share capital of RRPR against Warrant Exercise Notice dated August 23 , 2022 issued by VCPL to RRPR. VCPL has also received share certificates in this regard from RRPR dated 29th November, 2022.
“Further, Sudipta Bhattacharya, Sanjay Puglia and, Senthil Sinnaiah Chengalvarayan have been appointed as Directors of RRPR with effect from November 29, 2022. Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy have resigned from the Board of Directors of RRPR with effect from November 29, 2022 Consequently, Sudipta Bhattacharya, Sanjay Puglia, and Senthil Sinnaiah Chengalvarayan, who are also directors on the board of VCPL, now constitute the entire board of directors of RRPR,” Adani Enterprises said in a stock exchange filing.
Puglia is the Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of Media Initiatives at Adani Group.
RRPR, which has been acquired by the Adani Group, held 29.18 per cent stake in the news channel.
In 2009, Roy had taken an interest-free loan of over Rs 400 crore from a firm linked to Reliance Industries, which eventually ended up with Vishwapradhan Commercial Pvt Ltd. The loan allowed VCPL to convert the warrants into shares in RRPR Holdings, which held a 29.2 per cent stake in NDTV.
The Adani Group bought VCPL in August and sought to convert the warrants into shares. NDTV’s promoters initially opposed the move, saying they were not consulted, but earlier this week relented and allowed the conversion, giving VCPL a 99.5 per cent stake in RRPR Holding.
Following the acquisition of VCPL, Adani Group launched an open offer to acquire 26 per cent stake in NDTV. This offer opens on 22nd November and closes on 5th December.
The offer has so far received offers for 53.27 lakh shares or one-third of the entire open offer size. This is despite a deep discount to the open offer price as compared to current stock levels.
The port-to-energy conglomerate is seeking 1.67 crore shares or 26 per cent of the equity in NDTV from minority investors.
A successful open offer would give the Adani group a controlling stake of over 55 per cent.
Read also: Corporate bodies take lead in tendering NDTV shares in Adani’s open offer
