27 July 2017, India:
Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms have come to an agreement to sell 25% of the equity stakes to Reliance Industries Limited for a whopping $64 Million.
Balaji Telefilms Chairman and yesteryear’s popular actor Jeetendra Kapoor welcomed RIL as a partner in its growth journey towards becoming the preferred content producer for the Indian diaspora across all means of video consumption and across all geographies. “This investment is a vote of confidence to the company’s strategic move to own our IP and our viewers,” he added.
ALTBalaji is a multi-device subscription video on demand platform. It offers original, premium, and exclusive content for a global digital audience. The recently raised funds will be utilized provide the company with an impetus to compete with other OTT (over -the-top-content) service providers – both global and Indian as per the report by Inc42. The deal gave RIL access to Balaji Telefilms’ content for use by telecom unit Reliance Jio.
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Jeetendra Kapoor, Balaji’s Chairman, said “We welcome Reliance Industries Limited as a partner in our growth journey towards becoming the preferred content producer for the Indian diaspora across all means of video consumption and across all geographies. This investment is a vote of confidence to the Company’s strategic move to own our IP and our viewers. I would like to congratulate Ekta and the entire Balaji team on this early success and am sure that they will continue to take the Company forward from strength to strength. I would also like to thank Axis Capital for its valuable and unwavering support over the years. They have visualized and facilitated this important investment which will help us become one of the leading content players globally”.
Balaji Telefilms is one of India’s leading entertainment content producer operating across television, movie and digital platforms. Over the years, the Company has demonstrated sustained success in pioneering the production of differentiated content across different genres and languages.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India’s largest private sector company, with a consolidated turnover of INR 330,180 crore ($ 50.9 billion), cash profit of INR 42,800 crore ($ 6.6 billion), and net profit of INR 29,901 crore ($ 4.6 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2017. (Image- The Hindu)
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