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Essel completes first tranche of ZEE stake sale to Invesco Oppenheimer

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MUMBAI: Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group has sold an around 8.7% stake in Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) to Invesco Oppenheimer, completing the first tranche of its deal to sell 11% of the media company to the US-based fund manager. “The group is confident of completing the balance sale of 2.3% stake over the next few days,” the Essel Group, which is selling assets to pare debt, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The group is working towards timely completion of operational formalities in order to conclude the entire transaction at the earliest.” The Essel Group promoters, who owe lenders, including mutual funds, more than Rs 11,000 crore, have time till September 30 to repay debt.

The money from the stake sale will directly go to lenders.

The promoters are also selling infrastructure and solar power assets to raise money to pay off debt. On July 31, Essel Group promoters signed an agreement with Inveso Oppenheimer to sell up to 11% stake in ZEE for Rs 4,224 crore.

It completed the sale of the first tranche of shares to Invesco Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund on Tuesday. Zee managing director Punit Goenka had told ET that through the sale of ZEE and of non-media assets, promoters should be comfortable to pay off the entire debt. Last month, Essel Group reached an agreement with the Adani Group to sell 205 MW of operating solar assets for Rs 1,300 crore.

The company had said that it was also in talks to sell the remaining 480 MW of power projects. The promoters are in talks to sell six of its 14 road projects to National Investment - Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) for around Rs 2,500 crore.

These include four operational and two under-construction toll roads. The company had earlier sold two transmission assets — Darbhanga-Motihari Transmission and NRSS XXXI (B) Transmission — to an Edelweiss fund for close to Rs 2,000 crore.

It is also in talks with former Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal to sell the Essel Mutual Funds business. Six mutual fund houses — Aditya Birla MF, HDFC Mutual, SBI Mutual, ICICI Prudential, Franklin Templeton and Kotak — have a total exposure of close to Rs 6,300 crore to the shares of Essel Group entities including ZEE, Dish TV and Essel Infrastructure. While Goenka had stated that if needed, promoters could sell a further 9% stake in ZEE, the current agreements and deals were set to fetch more than Rs 10,000 crore of proceeds.

Along with further sale of 480 MW of under-construction solar projects, this would allow the promoters to clear their debt, he had said.




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