Promoters of Zee Entertainment in talks to sell stake

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, (ZEEL) which is recently in news for concerns over promoter share pledges, is in advanced talks with James Murdoch family office, LupaSystems, Blackstone and Atairos for a possible structured deal which comprises a part stake sale of promoters' holding, said media reports.

The promoter entity of ZEEL, Essel Group owes Rs. 7,000 crore to mutual funds and to avoid the risk of default, the promoter must carry out this stake sale process before September 2019.

As of March 2019 quarter, promoters owned nearly 38.20 per cent stake in the company, of which 66.18 per cent were pledged. The details of the deal are not yet known. However, if this deal gets through it would help the promoters release their pledged shares from the lenders. Further, this would also ease the concerns that overhang the stock due to share pledges.

In Thursday's trading session, the stock of ZEEL opened at Rs. 362 apiece, an increase of 1.3 per cent from its previous close to touch an intra-day high of Rs. 365.55 per share. But later the stock cooled down and went down to Rs. 358.60 and at 14.25 hours the stock was trading at Rs. 359.80, down by 0.3 per cent.