NEW DELHI (AFP) – India’s Reliance Industries has signed a “binding pact” for a merger deal with Walt Disney’s local unit, Bloomberg News reported yesterday, a major shakeup for the country’s multi-billion dollar entertainment industry.
India’s entertainment market is already one of the world’s biggest, with the expected merger set to create a vast and powerful entertainment giant.
The report of the deal comes as billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani, chairman of oil-to-telecoms giant Reliance Industries, readies to host Disney chief Robert Iger on March 1 for his son’s wedding in India’s western Gujarat state.
Bloomberg said the deal is expected to see the media unit of Reliance and its affiliates hold at least a 61-per-cent stake in the merged entity, with Disney holding the rest.
Disney has been under significant pressure ever since Iger left the company only to be brought out of semi-retirement more than a year ago when his successor underperformed.
Ambani, 66, is the world’s 10th-richest person according to the Forbes real-time billionaires list.
He has invited a guest list of powerful businessmen and politicians to celebrate the wedding of his son Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, the daughter of an industrialist, from March 1-3.
Last month a proposed USD10 billion merger between India’s Zee Entertainment and the local unit of Japanese giant Sony was called off, reportedly because of disagreements over who would lead the new entity.
