Viacom18
Sale comes after Reliance and Disney’s $8.5 billion deal to merge TV and streaming property in India
Paramount World has offered its 13% possession stake in Indian TV and streaming firm Viacom18 to Reliance Industries for $517 million. Reliance was already the bulk proprietor of Viacom18.
The pact comes two weeks after Disney and Reliance Industries introduced a blockbuster $8.5 billion deal merging their huge Indian TV and streaming companies. As a part of that settlement, Reliance’s Viacom18 is merging with Disney’s Star India.
On March 13, Paramount World entered an settlement with Reliance Industries to promote Paramount’s total 13.01% fairness curiosity in Viacom18 for the equal to roughly $517 million based mostly on the present international change price, in response to a submitting with the SEC on Wednesday.
Bodhi Tree, an organization managed by former Disney India chair Uday Shankar and James Murdoch, owns 15.97% of Viacom18.
Viacom18 calls itself “one in every of India’s quickest rising leisure networks.” The enterprise features a portfolio of 38 channels throughout normal leisure, motion pictures, sports activities, youth, music and youngsters genres. JioCinema, Viacom18’s streaming platform, is amongst India’s high streaming companies, whereas Viacom18 Studios has produced and distributed Hindi movies and regional movies for greater than 13 years in India.
For Paramount World, the sale of its curiosity in Viacom18 is a part of its efforts to bolster its steadiness sheet. The media firm ended 2023 with long-term debt of $14.6 billion, down from $15.6 billion a 12 months prior. In August 2023, Paramount World introduced a deal to promote the Simon & Schuster publishing enterprise to funding large KKR for $1.62 billion in money. “[W]e’re extremely targeted on persevering with to scale back steadiness sheet leverage,” Paramount World CFO Naveen Chopra mentioned on the corporate’s Feb. 28 earnings name.
The closing of Paramount World’s sale of the Viacom18 stake is topic to sure customary situations, together with receipt of relevant regulatory approvals, in addition to the completion of the beforehand introduced three way partnership involving Reliance, Viacom18 and Star Disney. After the closing, Paramount will proceed to license its content material to Viacom18, in response to the submitting.