Reliance Industries and Walt Disney to Merge Viacom18 with Star India in $8.5bn Deal | India Enterprise Information – Instances of India

MUMBAI: Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries and world media main Walt disney on Wednesday signed a binding pact to merge their media operations in India in a $8.5-billion deal, making a behemoth with 120 TV channels and two digital OTT platforms.
RIL-owned Viacom18 will likely be merged with Walt Disney’s native arm star India, strengthening the Reliance’s maintain over the nation’s $28-billion media and leisure business. Reliance, together with Viacom18, will personal 63% within the merged entity, whereas Disney will maintain the remaining 37%.
Reliance will infuse $1.4 billion (Rs 11,500 crore) within the merged firm to finance its development plans and consequently, the transaction will worth the brand new entity at $8.5 billion (Rs 70,352 crore). The announcement comes after Japan’s Sony Corp terminated a $10-billion merger between its native arm and Zee Leisure Enterprises.

Nita Ambani, spouse of Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani, will lead the merged firm’s board, whereas Uday Shankar, co-founder of Bodhi Tree Techniques, will likely be its vice-chairperson. Nita’s appointment comes practically six months after she stop RIL‘s board to deal with philanthropy.
The event marks Shankar’s return to Disney, the place he was chairman of Star India. After quitting Disney, Shankar joined arms with British-American businessman James Murdoch to arrange Bodhi Tree.
Bodhi Tree, during which Qatar Funding Authority and NBCUniversal & Sky-owner Comcast are additionally shareholders, personal about 13% in Viacom18. With a 47% stake, Viacom18 would be the largest shareholder of the merged entity, which will likely be managed by Reliance, a joint assertion mentioned.
The merged entity can have over 750 million viewers throughout the nation and also will cater to the Indian diaspora.
Disney has been grappling with challenges in India corresponding to retaining subscribers in addition to securing streaming rights of coveted cricket tournaments. In 2022, Reliance outbid Disney to win the streaming rights for IPL and bagged a multi-year pact in April to broadcast HBO reveals, which had been earlier with Disney. Reliance streamed IPL matches totally free leading to Disney+Hotstar subscriber exodus.
Disney might contribute sure extra media property to the mixed entity, the assertion mentioned. Nevertheless, it did not spell out the main points. “Reliance has a deep understanding of the Indian market and shopper,” mentioned Disney CEO Bathroom Iger, and the deal will permit “us to raised serve shoppers with a broad portfolio of digital providers and leisure and sports activities”.