Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd (RBNL), part of Reliance Group (formerly Reliance ADAG), has informed BSE that it plans to delist itself from the BSE Listings. The board of directors has approved the proposal and is currently seeks approval of shareholders of the company though postal ballot in terms of the SEBI Delisting Regulations. Note that the promoters will have to buy another 18% stake from the public and take promoter holding to 90% to successfully delist. Provided they receive the shareholder approval, Reliance group will have spend Rs 100 crore to buy out the public shareholders at the current market price as indicated by Techcircle. Promoter group entities Reliance Capital Limited, Reliance Land Private Limited and Reliance ADA Group held around 72.09% in the company by June 2013. While the exact reason for de-listing the company is not known yet, the company has been in loss. For the quarter ending June 2013, it reported a net loss of Rs 15.75 crore compared to a loss of Rs 28.70 crore it had reported in the same quarter last year. RBNL, a media and entertainment business, include businesses such as radio, television, and television production. It runs the radio channel 92.7 BIG FM, BIG CBS Networks (a joint venture with CBS Studios International offering English Entertainment Channels – Love and Prime as well as a regional General Entertainment Channel for the Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh (PCHP) region called Spark Punjabi), BIG RTL THRILL (channel from the Company’s joint venture with Europe’s RTL Group), BIG MAGIC, and a media sales unit BIG Connect. It also distributes Bloomberg TV India, a business news channel as part of its television bouquet. Reliance Group also runs other media and entertainment firms that houses multiplexes (BIG Cinemas), Reliance Digital TV, and movie production house Reliance Mediaworks. Reliance Group’s plan to reduce debt It appears that Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group is looking to reduce its debt. In last couple of months, it has taken various decisions to do so: - In July 2013, Reliance Communications (RCOM) has informed BSE that its company board has decided in-principle to demerge its real estate business into a separate company called Reliance Properties Ltd. - In March 2013, RCOM had confirmed that it was in talks with Bahrain Telecommunication Company (Batelco) to offload its global communications services business unit Reliance Globalcom. However, in April 2013, RCOM had informed that it was no longer in talks with Batelco for this acquisition and was in advanced talks with Samena Capital, as a part of a consortium with global PE funds. The deal was expected to close by the end of May 2013, however there is no further updates on this deal yet. - A Business Standard report suggested that Sun TV is planning to pick up 80% stake in Reliance Digital TV for Rs 2,500 crore. However, in its conference call with investors, it informed that they are certainly exploring various options but they are currently not in definitive discussions with any company. - In April 2013, it inked a Rs 1,200 crore deal with Reliance Jio Infocomm to share its nationwide inter-city fibre optic network infrastructure and also get access to the optic fiber infrastructure being built by RIL. - In June 2013, it inked Rs 12,000 crore deal with Reliance Jio Infocomm to share its 45,000 ground and rooftop based towers for RIL’s 4G service. - In June 2013, RCOM CEO (Wireless) Gurdeep Singh had informed The Economic Times that it was in talks for a third deal with Reliance Jio Infocomm to share optic fibre in cities. The deal is expected to be announced by December 2013, as per a DNA report.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 17:01:09 +0000