NEW DELHI: Invesco Developing Markets Fund, which till March 31, 2022, owned 18 per cent equity in Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL), is selling another 5.51 per cnet stake in the media outlet, which will soon complete its merger with Culver Max Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (formerly Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt. Ltd.)
The stake sale will take place in a block trade and can fetch the investor as much as USD 169.5 million. The block trade will see Invesco offload over half of its current stake in ZEEL, which stood at 10.14 per cnet as of June 30, held via OFI Global China Fund LLC and other funds.
The block trade involves the sale of 52,935,068 equity shares at a price range of Rs 250-263.7 per equity share, a discount of 0.0 per cent to 5.2 per cent to the last close price of Rs 263.70 as of Monday. As per the deal paper, the stake sale will fetch Invesco USD 160.7 million or Rs 1,323.4 crore at the lower end of the price, while at the upper-end Invesco will rake in USD 169.5 million or Rs 1,395.9 crore.
Brokerage firm Kotak Securities is acting as the sole broker for the block trade. Invesco had sold a 7.73 per cent stake in ZEEL for Rs 2092 crore in April 2022 after withdrawing its demand for an extraordinary general meeting to seek the ouster of ZEEL’s CEO Puneet Goenka.
Invesco’s fresh share sale comes days after ZEEL shareholders approved the proposed merger of ZEEL and Bangla Entertainment with Sony Pictures by a thumping majority of 99.99 per cent. With a combined audience of about 27 per cnet across 75 channels, Zee and Sony will overtake Disney Star in the broadcast segment.