Sony-Zee Merger Risks Collapse Over Eleventh-Hour CEO Drama: Report

Zee is insisting that its Chief Executive Officer Punit Goenka - also its founder's son - will helm the new entity.

The fate of the planned merger between Sony Group Corp.'s India unit and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. may be known as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, as the companies face a looming deadline to resolve their standoff or scuttle a long-awaited deal to create a $10 billion media giant.

Unless the two sides can agree on who'll lead the merged entity and give the final touches to the merger, Sony is likely to send a letter next week to Zee saying the stipulated demands for the merger couldn't be met, said the people, who asked not to be named as the information isn't public. That could be the death knell for the deal since there won't be enough time to tie all the loose ends by the formal Dec. 21 deadline, the people said.

Zee is insisting that its Chief Executive Officer Punit Goenka - also its founder's son - will helm the new entity, as agreed in the pact signed in 2021, while Sony is wary of his appointment given a regulatory probe against Goenka, the people added. This has created an eleventh-hour tussle in the two-year-old merger plan that has already seen a fair share of drama and delays.