Anil Ambani looks for stake in Gopinath’s Deccan Cargo
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) private equity arm, Reliance Equity Advisors, is holding talks to invest
over $50 million (Rs 250 crore) in Gopinath’s new venture — Deccan Cargo — in return for a significant minority stake in the start-up airline, sources said.
Gopinath’s new dream of linking India’s distant hinterlands to the mainstream markets is expected to take off in January next year with fleet of Airbus aircrafts.
Others in the fray to pick up a slice of Deccan Cargo include US venture capital major New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Intel Capital. Sources said the investment bank with fund-raising mandate from Gopinath has approached 3-4 suitors, including ADAG, and will probably narrow down to a potential suitor within two weeks.
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Reliance ADAG To Kick-Off Big TV On Tuesday
Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group is expected to kick-off the much-awaited Big TV, the Direct-To- Home service from Reliance’s Big TV DTH service on Tuesday, August 19th, in Mumbai, reported the media. Read more
Reliance ADAG\’s BIG Music & Home Entertainment inks exclusive deal with Warner
Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group company BIG Music & Home Entertainment has signed on Warner Home Video as its exclusive home video licensee for India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Under the strategic alliance BIG Music & Home Entertainment will market and distribute VCD, DVD and Blu Ray products from Warner Home Video, which has titles like the classic Gone with the Wind and Doctor Zhivago,The Matrix Trilogy, 300, and the Harry Potter, Batman and Superman franchises. Read more
Savvion Selected by Reliance Capital for BPM
Savvion, a business process management (BPM) company, announced that Reliance Capital, a Reliance ADA group company and one of India’s leading and fastest growing private sector financial services companies, will deploy Savvion BusinessManager 7.0 as part of an enterprise BPM initiative spanning all company subsidiaries - Mutual Fund, Life Insurance, General Insurance, Reliance Money and Consumer Finance. Read more
Reliance’s Big Broadcasting appoints Manavjeet Singh as distribution head
Reliance ADAG is gearing up for the launch of its bouquet of entertainment channels. As a step in this direction, Big Broadcasting has appointed Manavjeet Singh as head - distribution.
Ambani fued: ADAG may file lawsuit against RIL officials
The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG), which is engaged in consolidation talks with the South African telecom major MTN on Wednesday said it was open to criminal proceedings against some officials of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) for what it claimed was fraudulent misuse of powers by them.
The statement was in response to a letter to MTN from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), claiming the first right to refuse majority stake in Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications, should they be put up for sale, based on a family pact two years ago.
Reliance Big in talks with Spielberg’s DreamWorks
Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Big Entertainment is in talks with Steven Spielberg-led DreamWorks Movie Studios to form a joint venture for movies, media reports said here.
According to UK daily Financial Times, DreamWorks and India’s Reliance Big Entertainment are in talks to create a new movie joint venture, a deal which would provide the Hollywood director with an important source of funds for his planned move out of Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures.
However, when contacted by PTI, Reliance Big Entertainment spokesperson in Mumbai declined to comment on the reports.
DreamWorks, which would likely have funds of up to 1.5 billion dollars, including debt and equity, would be part of moves by Spielberg and DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen to exit Viacoms Paramount Pictures as soon as their contracts permit it this year, the report stated.
The FT report quoted a person familiar to the talks saying, “Spielberg, as you know, has announced his intention to separate from Paramount. It [the contact with Reliance] is at a very preliminary stage.”
A separate report on the online edition of Wall Street Journal stated that Mumbai-based Reliance ADA Group would provide Spielberg and company with 500-600 million dollar in equity, moving them one step closer to ending one of Hollywood’s most contentious and closely watched battles.
“In Reliance, the DreamWorks team also would have an unusual and ambitious partner in the film business: an Indian firm with interests in telecommunications, financial services and entertainment that wants to build a media empire by financing Hollywood pictures,” the WSJ report stated.
Source: business-standard.com/
Spielberg close to movie deal with India’s Reliance
DreamWorks SKG, the Hollywood film studio, is close to signing a deal with one of India’s biggest entertainment conglomerates to form a new movie venture.
A deal would give director Steven Spielberg, one of the three media moguls who formed DreamWorks in 1994, enough cash to finance his DreamWorks team’s departure from Viacom’s Paramount Pictures later this year.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Reliance ADA Group, based in Mumbai and controlled by billionaire industrialist Anil Ambani, would provide Mr Spielberg and the company with between $500 million (£256 million) and $600 million in equity.
DreamWorks, whose films includes last year’s Blades of Glory and Dreamgirls in 2006, would likely seek another $500 million worth of borrowings elsewhere to finance around six new films a year under the new venture.
The company would then choose a studio to distribute the films.
General Electric’s Universal Pictures, where Mr Spielberg began his career, is thought to be the director’s preference to release his future works, but News Corporation’s Twentieth Century Fox also is thought to be a serious contender.
News Corporation is the owner of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and is also owner of The Times.
A spokesman for DreamWorks declined to comment.
DreamWorks was sold to Viacom in 2006 after a more than a decade as a private company.
However, relations between DreamWorks and Viacom’s Paramount became strained and last year DreamWorks began to signal publicly that they might leave the studio in 2008, when the contracts of Mr Spielberg and Mr Geffen allow it.
The team will be allowed to continue using their DreamWorks SKG name, though Viacom would retain rights to the films they created during their time at Paramount.
Mr Spielberg is expected to be joined in the venture by Stacey Snider, chief executive at DreamWorks and the former head of Universal Pictures, who joined Mr Spielberg in 2006.
Reliance’s entertainment division, Reliance Big Entertainment, announced a number of new investments in Hollywood projects last month at the Cannes Film Festival, including providing financing to a handful of Hollywood stars with production houses, such as Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt.
The company also said it would also spend more than $1 billion over the next 18 months building its entertainment empire in India and abroad.
Source: business.timesonline.co.uk
Reliance Big in talks with Spielberg’s DreamWorks for JV
Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Big Entertainment is in talks with Steven Spielberg-led DreamWorks Movie Studios to form a joint venture for movies, media reports said here.
According to UK daily Financial Times, DreamWorks and India’s Reliance Big Entertainment are in talks to create a new movie joint venture, a deal which would provide the Hollywood director with an important source of funds for his planned move out of Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures.
However, when contacted by PTI, Reliance Big Entertainment spokesperson in Mumbai declined to comment on the reports.
DreamWorks, which would likely have funds of up to 1.5 billion dollars, including debt and equity, would be part of moves by Spielberg and DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen to exit Viacoms Paramount Pictures as soon as their contracts permit it this year, the report stated.
The FT report quoted a person familiar to the talks saying, “Spielberg, as you know, has announced his intention to separate from Paramount. It [the contact with Reliance] is at a very preliminary stage.” A separate report on the online edition of Wall Street Journal stated that Mumbai-based Reliance ADA Group would provide Spielberg and company with 500-600 million dollar in equity, moving them one step closer to ending one of Hollywood’s most contentious and closely watched battles.
“In Reliance, the DreamWorks team also would have an unusual and ambitious partner in the film business: an Indian firm with interests in telecommunications, financial services and entertainment that wants to build a media empire by financing Hollywood pictures,” the WSJ report stated.
Source: ptinews.com
Anil Ambani Plans to buy Subhash Chandra’s Essel World
In acquisition mode yet again, the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group is now eyeing the Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group’s amusement park in Mumbai—popularly known as ‘Essel World’.
ADAG insiders told ET that Reliance Entertainment was keen on the property, considering its popularity and location. Essel World is one of the first initiatives to set up an amusement part in Mumbai.
Essel World is touted as the first and largest amusement theme parks in India with an area of 64 acres. The
move is in sync with the younger Ambani’s entertainment blue-print of creating entertainment zones across the country. According to sources, the deal is valued anywhere between Rs 300 crore and Rs 400 crore.
When contacted, a Reliance ADAG spokesperson said, “We do not comment on market speculation.”
For the Essel Group, the decision to let go of the franchise stems from the fact that the amusement park faces tough competition from other recreational centres such as malls and multiplexes. While margins in the business are high, the capital expenditure to run an amusement park is also relatively high, as one has to re-invest at least half of that money into the business year on year.
Also, with Mr Chandra’s grand plan of setting up a 1000 acre entertainment and tourism-related SEZ gone kaput, with objection from the local inhabitants and political parties, the stand alone property is not part of the company’s larger entertainment vision.
Essel Propack vice-chairman Ashok Goel declined to comments.
In fact, in February this year, Mr Chandra stated that they were open to withdraw from the project if the surrounding local community was not convinced of the project. There has been no real movement on that front. Leading the talks from the ADAG stable is Reliance Entertainment president Rajesh Sawhney. The acquisition of Essel World for Reliance Entertainment would translate into direct access to an entertainment zone, which could be refurbished and created into a larger brand, as opposed to hunting for land and developing an amusement park from scratch.
Also, in the recent past, the Essel Group has not really focused on the venture, and the returns from the amusement park has not been very significant. An ADAG insider close to deal said, “Negotiations are on, and now it is just a matter of valuation. If the economic value is good, the Essel Group would think twice about selling the property.”
In the recent past, the ADAG group have made significant moves in the entertainment space. It recently struck a joint venture with the London based Great Wheel Co-operation (GWC), the IPR holders of iconic viewing and observation structures such as the London Eye and the Singapore Flyer for India, to develop and operate great wheels and observation platforms for 5 cities in the country. The total investment cost of the project, excluding land was estimated to be $ 500 million.
In fact, the first two cities where the project will take off will be Mumbai and Delhi, The three other locations are yet to be finalised, as the company is studying which locations would be most condusive to tourists as well as land availability.
Source: Economic Times
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Date Time:01-12-2008 05:28
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