Dish TV & Videocon d2h merger?
August 18, 2016
By Chris Forrester
It isn’t the first time that India’s Dish TV and Videocon d2h have been reported to be in merger discussions, but again the gossip has led to India’s CNBC-TV18 news channel to state that the two pay-TV giants are close to agreeing merger terms.
The news channel said that Dish TV, already India’s largest DTH operator, as well as being behind the ‘Zee’ family of TV channels, would be acquiring Videocon d2h and in the process creating a massive business with a 45 per cent share of the market.
The news channel said that the deal is likely to be a cash + shares offer, where Videocon d2h shareholders would receive 4 shares in Dish for every 5 shares they held in Videocon d2h.
Videocon d2h is backed by the Dhoot family with Harry Sloan and Jeff Sagansky owning 33.5 percent of the business through their Silver Eagle Acquisition business. They paid $303 million for their stake in January 2015.
Videocon d2h is Nasdaq-listed and with a market capitalisation of some $989 million. On July 25th it reported revenues up 23.5 per cent y-o-y, and had 12.29 million subscribers.