Hyderabad: Associated Broadcasting Company Private Limited (ABCL), which owns a bouquet of Regional News Channels in seven languages under the brand name of TV9, has witnessed many unsuccessful deals in the past.
However, the company had finally found a way out with a group of investors led by Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) stepping into the deal. They have signed a definitive agreement to buy outthe News Broadcasting Company.
An SPV set up by the promoters of MEIL, My Home Group and a couple of other investors will be acquiring 100% shares of ABCL. The deal has been valued little over Rs 4.5 billion. It may be noted that market speculated that Telangana’s leading industrialist Jupally Rameswar Rao owned My Home Group was in talks to buy the news channel in 2016 and My Home Group is one among the suitors in this deal.
Chintalapati SrinivasaRaju aka Sriniraju, the Co-founder and Chairman of Private equity firm Peepul Capital and his firms own majority stake in ABCL, while private equity firm Saif Partners and TV 9 CEO Ravi Prakash own the rest of the equity.
Sources familiar with the deal confirmed that a definitive agreement was signed by the existing shareholders of ABCL and the new investors for the acquisition of TV9 operations. First tranche payout and other formalities are expected to follow soon.
Launched in 2003, TV9 has been a leader in Telugu language and runs 24×7 News channels in seven languages, including Kannada and Gujarati.
According to the BARC data for week 32 TV9 Telugu was topping the charts with 47981 (000s) impressions staying ahead of TV5 Telugu, NTV Telugu and V6 News. Similarly in Kannada News Space TV9 Kannada was leading with74202 (000s) impressions staying ahead of Public TV and Suvarna News.
TV9 Gujarati was undisputed leader competing with GEC like Colors Gujarati, standing at No. 2 in overall category with 11994 (000s) impressions.
