Committed to the merger with Sony, termination news is baseless: Zee

Zee Entertainment Enterprises on Tuesday issued a clarification saying that the news of Zee-Sony merger termination is baseless and that the Company is committed to the merger.

Zee Entertainment in a regulatory filing said that this is with reference to the letter dated January 9, 2024, received from National Stock Exchange of India and an email dated January 9, 2024, received from BSE, regarding the news item captioned "Sony on the brink of terminating $10 billion merger with Zee: The inside story of what went wrong over two years" appeared in the ‘economictimes.indiatimes.com’.

“In this regard, we would like to clarify that the above-mentioned article is baseless and

factually incorrect. We wish to reiterate that the Company is committed to the merger with Sony and is continuing to work towards a successful closure of the proposed merger,” the Company said.

“We would also like to state that the Company has always complied with its obligations under

the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements)

Regulations, 2015 and will continue to make disclosures in accordance with the same,” it added.

A Bloomberg report, which appeared yesterday, said that Sony Group Corp. is considering scrapping the merger agreement involving its India unit and Zee Entertainment Enterprises.

The potential dissolution arises from a disagreement concerning the leadership of the envisioned $10 billion entity.

Sony intends to submit the termination notice before the extended deadline of January 20 for completing the deal, sources told Bloomberg.

Zee has been asserting that Punit Goenka, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the son of the company's founder, will lead the new entity as stipulated in the 2021 agreement. However, Sony is cautious about this appointment due to an ongoing regulatory investigation against Goenka. This disagreement has sparked a last-minute conflict in the two-year-old merger plan.

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