Reliance Industries (RIL), Viacom 18 Media and The Walt Disney Company announced the merger of the media and JioCinema businesses of Viacom18 into Star India has become effective.
The transaction values the JV at Rs 70,352 crore ($ 8.5 billion) on a post-money basis, excluding synergies. At the closing of the transactions noted above, the JV is controlled by RIL and owned 16.34% by RIL, 46.82% by Viacom18 and 36.84% by Disney. In addition, RIL has invested Rs 11,500 crore into the JV for its growth. The JV has allotted shares to Viacom18 and RIL as consideration for the assets and cash, respectively.
Nita M. Ambani will be the Chairperson of the JV, with Uday Shankar as Vice Chairperson providing strategic guidance to the JV.
The JV will be spearheaded by three CEOs who will lead the company into a new era of ambition and disruption. Kevin Vaz will head the entertainment organisation across platforms. Kiran Mani will take charge of the combined digital organisation. Sanjog Gupta will lead the combined sports organisation.
The JV’s leadership team includes:
- Alok Jain, Head of Cluster, Entertainment (Colors, Digital Hindi, Niche, Movies and Studios)
- Sumanta Bose, Head of Cluster, Entertainment (Star Plus and Bharat, Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati)
- Krishnan Kutty, Head of Cluster, Entertainment (South)
- Ajit Varghese, Head of Revenue, Entertainment and International
- Piyush Goyal, Head of TV Distribution
- Rasesh Upadhyay will work directly with Kevin to drive entertainment business strategy and operations
- Bharath Ram, Head of Product
- Akash Saxena, Head of Technology
- Shoury Bharadwaj, Head of Engineering
- Vijay Seshadri, Chief Architect
- Ishan Chatterjee, Head of Business, Sports Revenue, SMB and Creator
- Hursh Shrivastava, Head of Partnerships
- Sushant Sreeram, Head of Marketing
- Gaurav Gokhale, will work directly with Kiran to drive digital business strategy and operations
- Ambuj Kashyap, will work directly with Uday Shankar and partner with CEOs on strategic and business initiatives
- Rishi Gaind, Head of Human Resources
- Rajat Nigam, Transition Head of IT and Media Operations
- George Cherian, Head of Corporate Communications and PR
- Sandeep Jain, Head of Commercial
- Mukesh Mundhra, Transition Finance Head
- Mani Rangarajan, will work on the financial integration of both organisations as a part of the transition
- Kshripa Jatana, Transition Legal Head
As per a joint statement, the JV is home to the most iconic and engaging media brands in India across TV and digital platforms. The combination of ‘Star’ and ‘Colors’ on the television side and ‘JioCinema’ and ‘Hotstar’ on the digital front will provide an extensive choice of content across entertainment and sports to viewers in India and globally.
The formation of the JV will herald a new era in India’s entertainment industry for consumers. This unique joint venture of Reliance and Disney brings together the companies’ content creation and curation prowess, world-class digital streaming capabilities along with a digital first approach that will help the JV deliver unparalleled content choices at affordable prices to Indian viewers and the Indian diaspora globally.
