NDTV: Indian news conglomerate says it was acquired by billionaire tycoon Adani ‘without consent’

The indirect acquisition of an Indian news channel by a billionaire tycoon considered close to the country’s prime minister Narendra Modi, has sent shockwaves in newsrooms and the journalistic community across India.

NDTV, or New Delhi Television, has operated in India for decades by veteran journalists and co-founders Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, and is said to be part of a shrinking news space critical of the current dispensation at New Delhi.

But on Tuesday, billionaire businessman Gautam Adani’s media arm AMG Media Networks (AMNL) acquired a holding company that owns 29.18 per cent of NDTV, something the veteran journalists said was done “without consent”.

The move allows Mr Adani to buy another 26 per cent of the news conglomerate through an open offer triggered by regulations of the country’s securities watchdog.

“The NDTV founders and the Company would like to make it clear that this exercise of rights” was “executed without any input from, conversation with, or consent of the NDTV founders, who, like NDTV, have been made aware of this exercise of rights only today,” said a statement released by the broadcaster on the same day.

“As recently as yesterday, NDTV had informed the stock exchanges that there was no change in the shareholding of its founders,” it added.

Reuters reported that Mr Adani did not disclose financial details of the planned 29.18 per cent stake purchase. It said its subsequent open offer would be Rs 294 (£3) per NDTV share, worth Rs 4.93bn (£52.4m).

Rumours of an acquisition have surrounded NDTV in the past, including one in September last year that the Roys dismissed.

In a statement at the time, they had said the company was “not in discussions now, nor has been, with any entity for a change in ownership or a divestment of any sort”.

“Founder-promoters, Radhika and Prannoy Roy, who are both journalists, own 61.45 per cent of the company and remain in control of it.”

Suparna Singh, the chief executive of NDTV Group, said the company “is in the process of evaluating the next steps, many of which involve regulatory and legal processes”.

Mr Adani’s move comes after another decision to acquire a 49 per cent equity stake in Quintillion Media, which runs The Quint, another news portal critical of Mr Modi.

In May, AMNL acquired a 49 per cent equity stake for an undisclosed amount in the network founded by media entrepreneur Raghav Bahl.

AMNL was established earlier this year by Adani Enterprises Ltd to handle its publishing and broadcasting businesses.

“NDTV is the most suitable broadcast and digital platform to deliver on our vision,” said Sanjay Pugalia, the company’s chief executive officer commenting on the NDTV acquisition, terming it “a significant milestone”.

NDTV, in turn, has said it “has never compromised on the heart of its operations — its journalism. We continue to proudly stand by that journalism”.

The news also comes on the heels of a Bloomberg report citing Fitch group unit CreditSights that said the Adani empire was “deeply overleveraged” and predominantly funded with debt.

It said that the Group, in which there is “little evidence of promoter equity capital injections”, could spiral into a debt trap in the worst-case scenario.

Adani Group shares fell on Tuesday after the report emerged.

The country’s main opposition, the Indian National Congress, has accused Mr Modi and his “special friend” of trying to stifle independent media.

“The news of a deeply over-leveraged company owned by the PM’s ‘khaas dost’ [special friend] making a hostile takeover bid of a well-known TV news network is nothing but the concentration of economic and political power, and a brazen move to control and stifle any semblance of an independent media,” tweeted Congress lawmaker Jairam Ramesh.