NDTV founders Prannoy, Radhika Roy resign, Adani execs get on to holding firm board

The founders of New Delhi Television Ltd. resigned from the board of the holding company that owns a major stake in the Indian broadcaster as Asia’s richest man, Gautam Adani, gains ground in the hostile takeover battle.

Prannoy and Radhika Roy, the husband and wife journalist team who set up the media house in the 1980s, stepped down from RRPR Holding Pvt., NDTV said in a statement late Tuesday. The vehicle owns an almost 30 percent stake in NDTV and was indirectly acquired by the Adani Group in August -- triggering a wider open offer by the powerful Indian tycoon to buy further 26 percent in the media company.

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RRPR appointed two Adani Group executives -- Sudipta Bhattacharya and Sanjay Pugalia -- to the board, as well as Senthil Chengalvarayan, a journalist who is an independent director at Quintillion Business Media Pvt., another media firm in which Adani bought a stake in earlier this year.

The board recast shows the takeover battle is entering its final stages, overruling Roys’ opposition amid wider concerns that the transaction would erode press freedom given the tycoon’s perceived close relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The media organization was one of the few Indian newsrooms that wrote stories critical of the federal government.

The Roys didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Adani told the Financial Times this month that he intends to scale up NDTV to make it an international media group and has asked Prannoy Roy to remain as chair.

Open offer

Their resignations come after NDTV said Monday that RRPR had issued 99.5 percent of its equity shares to an Adani controlled entity. The Adani Group is also in the midst of its open offer to buy more from NDTV’s minority shareholders. A third of the offer, scheduled to conclude on December 5, has already been subscribed despite a steep discount to the current stock price.

When it was first launched, NDTV was a pioneer at a time when India’s main news channel was a stodgy state-owned broadcaster.

NDTV has since grown into a prominent media house that broadcasts news in English and Hindi.

Adani is now one step closer to gaining a larger footprint in India’s media sector as part of his broader diversification spree to expand his empire beyond coal mining and ports into airports, data centers, cement and digital services.

NDTV’s shares rose as much as 5.3 percent during trade in Mumbai on Wednesday, pushing the surge this year to almost 285 percent. By comparison, benchmark S&P BSE Sensex has advanced 7.7 percent in 2022.

Read more: Takeover of NDTV a ‘responsibility,’ says India’s richest man Adani