Reliance Industries said on Thursday that the open offer to acquire a controlling stake in media conglomerate Network18 Media & Broadcast (NW18) and its units would begin on July 21 and close on August 4.

₹4,000-cr investment Recently, RIL said that it would invest about ₹4,000 crore through Independent Media Trust, to acquire 78 per cent stake in NW18 and about 9 per cent stake in TV18 Broadcast.

Reliance is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust.

The deal follows a similar agreement in 2012, when it inked an investment deal with Network18.

The acquisition comes even as RIL’s telecom services unit, Reliance Jio Infocomm, gears up for the rollout of 4G telephony services.

RIL has made an open offer to acquire up to 23 crore Network18 shares at a price of ₹41.04 a share, amounting to ₹943.7 crore.

Interestingly, the open offer price is at a 45.8 per cent discount to Thursday’s closing price of Network18 shares. The company’s shares closed 9.92 per cent higher at ₹59.85 on the BSE.

RIL also intends to acquire up to 1.3 crore equity shares of Infomedia Press at ₹3 a share, and up to 44.6 equity shares of TV18 at ₹30.18 a share. Shares of TV18 ended 1.96 per cent higher at ₹33.75, while the Infomedia Press scrip went up ₹4.07 per cent to close at ₹4.9.

The media network owns a slew of news, entertainment and e-commerce channels such as CNN-IBN, CNBC TV18, Colors and HomeShop18, online news portal Firstpost.com and e-commerce websites such as Yatra.com and Bookmyshow.com, as well as print properties such as Forbes India magazine. The open offers are being made by JM Financial Institutional Securities on behalf of IMT, RIL and Reliance Industries.

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