Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL) has found a white knight in rival Sony with the latter agreeing to merge its India entertainment business with the beleaguered firm, thus creating India’s largest entertainment network with about $2 billion in revenues and 26 per cent viewership share.
The ZEEL board announced on Wednesday that it had approved a non-binding term sheet with Sony Pictures Networks India to merge their operations, and that the promoters of Sony would invest $1.57 billion in the merged entity as growth capital.
According to the indicative initial merger ratio, ZEEL shareholders will own approximately 47 per cent in the merged