Blackstone, the world’s largest leveraged buyout firm, is close to scrapping its PE deal for Hyderabad-based media group Ushodaya Enterprises, owners of Telugu publication Eenadu, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The PE giant had recently reduced the size of its original $275-million deal for picking a 26% stake in Ushodaya, announced in January 2007
asr: that is $1 Billion valuation
does this Ushodaya include Ramogi film studio? seems no based on post below ( for $1B valuation purpose? )
______________________
As part of the transaction, Ushodaya was raising $465 million (approximately Rs 2,000 crore), comprising of $275 million investment by Blackstone and $190 million in bank financing. The transaction was subject to regulatory approval by FIPB and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Ushodaya owns leading Telugu language newspaper - Eenadu and ETV - a private television broadcasting network. ETV runs regional language general entertainment and news channels. It has a footprint across Telugu, Bengali, Oriya, Kannada, Gujarati and Marathi languages. The parent company of Ushodaya, owns Ramoji Film City which is Asia’s largest studio.
______________________
While one relates to valuation, the other more important factor is that Blackstone reportedly doesn’t want to be seen as pushing through the deal when members of the ruling political party are opposing it. The US-based buyout firm does not want its future investments in the country being affected due to one transaction. According to some reports, certain Andhra Pradesh-based Congress politicians, who have a significant say at the national level of the party, have opposed the deal.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment