Walt Disney's open offer for UTV begins on October 8

Televisionpoint.com Correspondent | Mumbai
UTV Software Communications Ltd said on Friday that the offer for shares by the Walt Disney Co (Southeast Asia) Pte Ltd, a unit of Walt Disney, and Ronnie Screwvala, promoter and chief executive officer, UTV will open on October 8 and close on October 27.

The offer was earlier scheduled to open on April 11 and close on April 30, 2008. The Walt Disney Company along with Unilazer Exports and Management Consultant, Unilazer (Hong Kong) Ltd and Screwvala had made an open offer to the shareholders of UTV Software for acquiring 77,45,494 equity shares, around 20 per cent stake in UTV earlier this year.

The Walt Disney's open offer for the additional stake in UTV is still awaiting an approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The open offer was in order to comply with the SEBI regulations, post Walt Disney raising its stake in UTV to 32.1 per cent in February from 13.7 per cent.

As, upon the said allotment of shares and warrants the aggregate holding of Walt Disney along with the concert actors would be 64.20 per cent of the fully diluted post issue capital.

Walt Disney had offered to buy each share at Rs 860.79, the price at which the deal with Ronnie Screwvala, was struck. Since then, UTV share has shed 6.23 per cent and the decline in the share price is, however, lower than the fall in the Sensex, as witnessed from the global economic slowdown. However, on October 3, shares of UTV closed at Rs 762, up 3.18 per cent on the BSE.