Reliance picks up 2.52 crore shares of Balaji Telefilms for Rs 413.28 cr

The Board of Directors of Balaji Telefilms in its meeting held yesterday (June 20, 2017) approved an investment by Reliance Industries, through a preferential issue of 2.52 crore equity shares at Rs 164 each, aggregating to Rs 413.28 crore, subject to necessary shareholder and other approvals. 

This transaction marks a landmark event for the Indian OTT industry and is expected to further accelerate the growing trend of media consumption ‘on-the-go’. The proceeds from the transaction would be utilised to further speed up content development initiatives, especially for ALTBalaji, a multi-device subscription video on demand platform, thereby providing it with a strong ability to compete with other OTT service providers – both global and Indian. 

A month ago in June 2017, ALTBalaji had integrated with JioMoney, the mobile wallet from Reliance Payment Solutions, to provide digital transaction experience to its subscribers. 

Commenting on the transaction, Jeetendra Kapoor, Balaji’s Chairman, said, “We welcome Reliance Industries 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.” 

Axis Capital acted as the sole investment banker for this transaction. 

Balaji has today become one of India’s leading entertainment content producers, operating across television, movie and digital platforms. The company’s VOD platform, ALTBalaji, offers original, premium and exclusive content for a global digital audience and in a short span post its launch has garnered over 4 million downloads across 80 countries. ALT’s early success has further reinforced the company’s OTT strategy, which allows it to own the intellectual property rights and have direct access to the viewers.