In an effort to repay its Rs 11,000 crore debt, Essel group on Tuesday announced that it received the first tranche of Zee Entertainment's stake sale to Invesco Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund.
On July 31, the group had announced to sell 11 per cent promoter stake in Zee Entertainment to Invesco Oppenheimer for Rs 4,224 crore.
"Vide this Press Note, the Group wishes to confirm that the 1st tranche of the transaction comprising sale of 8.7% stake in ZEEL has been successfully concluded today. The Group is confident of completing the balance sale of 2.3% stake over the next few days. The Group is working towards timely completion of operational formalities in order to conclude the entire transaction at the earliest," Essel group said in a BSE filing.
During an interview with BusinessLine in July, CEO Punit Goenka had said the balance funds needed to settle the debt will be raised by selling non-media assets of the Zee group such as road and solar projects.
Read | Zee deal took just 45 minutes over breakfast : Punit Goenka
"This development reaffirms the Group’s positive progress on its overall asset divestment approach undertaken, to generate adequate liquidity for the repayment process. The Group is also working actively on further divestments including its non-media assets and remains confident to complete the same," Essel group said in a statement.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.