Reliance, Disney announce $8.5bn merger to create Indian media powerhouse
Al Jazeera
India’s entertainment market is already one of the world’s biggest, with the merger expected to further shake it up.
India’s Reliance Industries and Walt Disney of the United States have announced the merger of their India TV and streaming media assets, creating an $8.5bn entertainment powerhouse far ahead of rivals in the world’s most populous nation.
Reliance, led by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, will inject $1.4bn in the merged entity, with the company and its affiliates holding a more than 63 percent stake. Disney will hold about 37 percent, the companies said in a joint statement late on Wednesday.
For Disney, the merger follows a long struggle to arrest a user exodus from its bleeding India streaming business and the financial strain caused by billions of dollars in Indian cricket rights payments, in another example of how foreign businesses can struggle to grow in India.
The merger values the India business of the US entertainment giant at just about a quarter of the $15bn valuation when Disney acquired it as part of its Fox deal in 2019, sources have told the Reuters news agency.
The companies said the transaction values the merged venture at about $8.5bn on a post-money basis. They did not explain how they arrived at such a valuation.
