Adani Enterprises on Wednesday announced the entire board of directors of NDTV a day after resignation by the television channel’s founders Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy as the directors of promoter group vehicle RRPR Holding Private Limited.
The Roys, however, still hold a 32.26 per cent stake in NDTV as promoters and have not resigned from the board of the news channel.
The flagship Adani firm announced the board of directors of RRPR via a stock exchange filing.
“We would like to inform that VCPL has been issued 1,990,000 equity shares of face value Rs 10 each by RRPR Holding Private Limited on November 28, 2022 constituting 99.50% of the paid up share capital of RRPR, against the Warrant Exercise Notice dated August 23, 2022 issued by VCPL to RRPR. VCPL has also received share certificate in this respect on November 29, 2022 from RRPR.
“Further, Sudipta Bhattacharya, Sanjay Pugalia and, Senthil Sinniah 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 Pugalia, and Senthil Sinniah Chengalvarayan, who are also directors on the board of VCPL, now constitute the entire board of directors of RRPR,” said Adani Enterprises in a stock exchange filing.
Pugalia 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, Roys had taken an interest-free loan of over Rs 400 crore from a firm linked to Reliance Industries, that eventually ended up with a closely-held firm, Vishvapradhan Commercial Pvt Ltd. The loan allowed VCPL to convert warrants into shares of RRPR Holdings, which held a 29.2 per cent stake in NDTV.
Adani group in August bought VCPL and sought to convert the warrants into shares. NDTV promoters initially opposed the move saying they were not consulted but earlier this week relented and allowed the conversion, which gave VCPL a 99.5 per cent stake in RRPR Holding.
Post acquisition of VCPL, Adani group launched an open offer to acquire a 26 per cent stake in NDTV. That offer opened on November 22, and will close on December 5.
The offer has so far got offers for 53.27 lakh shares or a third of the entire open offer size. This despite the deep discount of the open offer price in comparison to the current stock levels.
The ports-to-energy conglomerate is seeking as much as 1.67 crore shares or 26 per cent of equity from NDTV’s minority investors.
A successful open offer will give Adani group a controlling stake of just over 55 per cent.
