ZEE and Dish TV sack CEO and face issues

There have been interesting developments at Zee Entertainment Limited (ZEL) and Dish TV after large foreign investors called for the sacking of the CEO and 2 directors.

There is something similar that might go down for other companies controlled by Subhash Chandra and family as well, namely Zee Learn Limited (ZLL) and Zee Media Corporation (ZMC).

The foreign investors in these companies want the promoters to give up control of running the company. The promoters hold 21.69 percent of Zee Learn and 14.72 percent in Zee Media Corporation, formerly known as Zee News.

When looking at the case of ZEL, this seems understandable as promoter shareholding was less than 4%, and they were still running the business. Basically, the CEO Punit Goenka is the son of the founder Subhash Chandra.

However, the case is different with these other 2 companies, ZLL and ZMC. This is due to the fact that the promoters and investors who are friendly with them own over 40% each in the 2 companies, whereas foreign investors combined own around 20%. 

Its foreign shareholders are Moon Capital Trading (6.43 percent), Polus Global Fund (6.13 percent), Morgan Stanley Asia (2.85 percent), Copthall Mauritius Investment (2.33 percent), and UBS Principal Capital Asia (1.4 percent), totalling 19.94 percent.

Zee Learn is an education firm with a large chain of KG to class XII schools under Mount Litera Zee School and also runs Asia’s largest pre-school chain called Kidzee.

Zee Media is the company that runs Zee News.  They have 14 channels in 6 languages and claim to reach 365 million viewers. They also run dnaindia.com.

Now, the investor wants a new management at ZLL. It is basically being driven by a NY-based Hedge Fund called Moon Capital Management. They own a little over 6% of the company since 2015 and are not happy with the way the company is being run. 

The reasons being cited for the same are increasing debt, poor corporate governance and no clear growth strategy. So, Moon Capital wants professionals and not family members in charge of running the business. They even wanted a board seat back in 2020 but did not get it.  

The investors are ramping up the pressure as the extraordinary general body meeting of the group is coming up soon.

ZEE Entertainment has decided to merge with Sony India with Sony taking 52.93% stake.  Sony will invest $1.57 billion and will be the majority shareholder.

ZEE shareholders will hold 47.07% stake and the merged entity will be publicly listed. 

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