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The Board of India’s Zee Entertainment on Friday rejected requests from two institutional investors for a meeting of shareholders, setting the stage for a courtroom battle that could impact an impending merger with Sony Pictures Network India, a media unit of Japan’s Sony Group Corp.
“After considering the unanimous advice received about the legal validity of the Requisition Notice (demand for an EGM), the Board deliberated, and unanimously concluded that the Requisition Notice is not valid, as it suffers from multiples legal infirmities,” Zee yesterday said in a regulatory filing with the BSE and NSE.
The company added: “Accordingly, in the best interests of the Company as a whole, including all its shareholders and stakeholders, we express our inability to convene the EGM on the lines requisitioned by you.”
The board’s decision comes a day after India’s companies’ court NCLT said Zee should consider a request by Invesco Developing Markets Fund and OFI Global China Fund LLC to hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM).
According to a Reuters report from New Delhi, Invesco and OFI Global had earlier this month asked Zee to emove MD and CEO Punit Goenka and two directors from the board and to appoint multiple independent directors.
But initial merger terms show Zee’s chief executive officer Punit Goenka will become the merged entity’s managing director and CEO as part of the deal.
On Friday, Zee rejected the call for an EGM, citing the lack of approvals required from India’s capital markets regulator and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for initiating changes to the company’s board.
Companies are legally required to call a meeting when asked by shareholders with stakes of 10 percent or more, said Shoubhik Dasgupta, a counsel at Pioneer Legal.
Invesco and OFI Global together account for 17.88 percent shares in Zee and had filed a petition this week with the National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) after Zee last week signed a merger deal with SPNI in a move that will create the country’s largest broadcaster.
