Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, the founders of NDTV, resigned from the board of RRPR Holdings, the main holding company of the promoters that owns a 29.2% stake in the media company, signalling a turning point in the Adani Group's takeover of the network. At the same time, three new people - Sudipta Bhattacharya, Sanjay Pugalia and Senthil Sinniah Chengalvarayan - were inducted into the company’s board as directors, a disclosure on BSE said.
Exchanges were notified by RRPR Holdings that it had changed the warrants it had previously given to Vishvapradhan Commercial (VCPL) into equity shares. The promoter's 29.2% stake in NDTV will now be held by VCPL, a business under the control of the Adani Group, as a result of this conversion into equity shares.
To put things in perspective, about a decade ago RRPR Holdings, the promoter entity, had issued warrants convertible into equity shares to VCPL to avail of a loan that was then used to run NDTV’s operations. If all these instruments were converted into shares, nearly full control of RRPR Holdings will shift to VCPL. The Adani Group took over VCPL in May of this year and requested that the warrants be converted into equity shares. Additionally, this triggered the Sebi takeover clause, which required the Adani Group to publish an open offer to purchase an additional 26% of NDTV from the market.
In order to comply with Sebi's takeover regulations, VCPL and two Adani Group companies launched their open offer on November 22 to acquire an additional 26% of NDTV. Sebi had given the Adani Group permission to proceed with its open offer for NDTV on November 11 at a price of Rs 249 per share.
Since the Adani Group announced its takeover of NDTV, the stock price has rallied on the BSE and it closed 5% higher at Rs 426. Despite the huge discount for the open offer price to the market price, Adani Group has already garnered nearly 32% of the equity capital of NDTV, disclosures on BSE showed.
A day after Roys leaving NDTV, Ravish Kumar, senior executive editor of channel, put his resignation “with immediate effect”. He anchored several news-based shows on NDTV India, such as Hum Log, Ravish ki Report, Des Ki Baat, and Prime Time. Kumar has been conferred twice with the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award, besides the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2019.
