Zee Entertainment plans to merge with Sony

The leading media company in India, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., announced on the 14th of October that its shareholders had given their approval to the plan to combine with the competitor, Culver Max Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., which was originally known as Sony Pictures Networks India.

According to a regulatory filing by a home-grown media major, ZEEL received 99.99% of the total votes polled in favour of the resolution for the composite scheme of arrangement between the transferor company Zee Entertainment and Bangla Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and the transferee Culver Max Entertainment.

This comes after the fair-trade regulator, CCI, gave its conditional permission to the massive merger deal between Sony and Zee, which would result in the creation of one of the major media firms in the nation. This news comes nearly a week after the clearance was given.

Following the instructions of the National Company Law Tribunal, which had required ZEEL to have the plan of arrangement authorised by its equity owners in accordance with the processes outlined in the Companies Act, ZEEL had scheduled a meeting of its equity shareholders to take place on Friday.

According to ZEEL's announcement from September last year, the combined company will have ownership of over 70 television channels, two video streaming services (ZEE5 and Sony LIV), and two film studios (Zee Studios and Sony Pictures Films India), making it the largest entertainment network in India. As part of the agreement, ZEE and BEPL will be combined with CME to form a single entity.