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Tag: Annual General Meeting

  • Mruci strengthens India leadership; appoints S Sinha & S Gupta as new members on the board

    Mruci strengthens India leadership; appoints S Sinha & S Gupta as new members on the board

    Mumbai: Media Research Users Council India (Mruci) held its 28th annual general meeting (AGM) on Tuesday via video conferencing.

    Mediabrands CEO – India Shashidhar Sinha and Jagran Prakashan director Shailesh Gupta will continue in their respective roles as chairman and vice chairman of Mruci. 

    The leadership duo was unanimously re-elected at Mruci’s board meeting, which was held shortly after its AGM.

    Maruti Suzuki India’s senior executive director of marketing & sales Shashank Srivastava and TV Today Network group chief marketing officer & COO of consumer revenue Vivek Malhotra have also been added to the board of governors as new members.

    Speaking of his appointment, Sinha stated, “With Covid behind us and the industry back to normal, we should hopefully start work on the new IRS shortly.”

    Adding to this, Gupta commented, “These are interesting times for research. With markets and businesses returning to normalcy, research will play a huge role in enabling business decisions. Mruci is well poised to enter the next phase of research, which will be increasingly powered by better use of technology that will power business, media, and marketing decisions.”

  • Producers Guild of India elects Shibasish Sarkar as president

    Producers Guild of India elects Shibasish Sarkar as president

    Mumbai: Shibasish Sarkar was unanimously elected as president of the Producers Guild of India at the first meeting of its newly constituted Guild Council of Management, which was held immediately after the 68th annual general meeting on 21 September.

    Shibasish is currently the chairman and CEO of International Media Acquisition. His most recent position was as group CEO of Reliance Entertainment, which is part of the Reliance ADA group.

    President-elect Shibasish Sarkar said, “In his six years as guild president, Siddharth has been a tireless, passionate, and committed champion for our industry at a time of unprecedented challenges. I look forward to building on what he has accomplished and working alongside my colleagues to help address the challenges and build on the opportunities we have before us as an industry.”

    Shibasish Sarkar is a media and entertainment industry professional with over 29 years of corporate experience in multiple verticals such as films, television, animation, gaming content, and digital & new media platform operations.

    Welcoming the president-elect, the incumbent president Siddharth Roy Kapur said, “It has been a pleasure and an honour to serve the production fraternity and I am delighted to pass the baton on to the able hands of Shibasish. I am sure he will do a stellar job and add further lustre to the Guild’s reputation for spearheading the industry’s interests.”

    Shibasish was a member of the senior leadership team and served as a director and member of the board of several group companies.

    He has held senior positions at Viacom 18, UTV Disney, and Godrej Sara Lee prior to joining Reliance, with a focus on establishing a new business, scaling up operations, and driving sustainable growth through key alliances, managing stakeholders, talent partners, and cross-functional teams.

    His academic credentials include being a certified chartered accountant, a cost accountant, a company secretary, and an MBA with a marketing specialisation.

  • Dish TV India schedules 33rd AGM for 30 December

    Dish TV India schedules 33rd AGM for 30 December

    Mumbai: Dish TV India’s board of directors has scheduled the 33rd annual general meeting (AGM) for 30 December.

    The company has extended the timeline for the AGM several times since it was first scheduled to be held on 27 September. It applied for the extension in view of the issues arising out of the pendency of an application filed by its shareholder Yes Bank before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai bench and in order to ensure compliance of all applicable laws and guidelines in this matter

    Dish TV India and Yes Bank are engaged in a boardroom battle where the latter sought the removal of directors of the company including managing director Jawaher Lal Goel and independent directors Dr Rashmi Aggarwal, Bhagwan Das Narang, Shankar Agarwal, and Ashok Mathai Kurien.

    The bank has proposed the appointment of a new board including Akash Suri, Sanjay Nambiar, Vijay Bhatt, Haripriya Padmanabhan, Girish Paranjape, Narayan Vasudeo Prabhutendulkar, and Arvind Nachaya Mapangada.

    Dish TV India board rejected the EGM notice by Yes Bank stating that a resolution to reconstitute the board can only be placed post receipt of approval from the ministry of information and broadcasting and other requisite approvals for appointment of new directors, within statutory guidelines.

    Yes Bank moved to NCLT with a petition to call for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders of Dish TV India and pass its resolution.

  • Dish TV India to convene 33rd AGM on 30 November

    Dish TV India to convene 33rd AGM on 30 November

    Mumbai: Dish TV India has informed its shareholders that its board of directors has approved the convening of the 33rd Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 30 November after a resolution was passed by the board on 7 November.

    On 29 October, the company had applied to the Registrar of Companies, Mumbai seeking an extension till 31 December to convene the AGM.

    Dish TV India had first sought an extension of the AGM in a notice submitted on 19 September. The AGM was previously scheduled to be held on 27 September. In its notice to the BSE, the company applied for the extension to ensure compliance with a notice sent by Dish TV India’s largest shareholder Yes Bank.

    In another development, the crime branch in Gautam Buddh Nagar (a district in Uttar Pradesh) has sent a notice to Dish TV India on 6 November, restricting Yes Bank from dealing in/and or exercising any rights over equity shares of Dish TV India held by Yes Bank until completion of an investigation being conducted by them. More details on the investigation are awaited.

    Yes Bank, which has a 25.63 per cent shareholding in Dish TV India had sought the removal of directors of the company including managing director Jawaher Lal Goel and independent directors Dr. Rashmi Aggarwal, Bhagwan Das Narang, Shankar Agarwal, and Ashok Mathai Kurien.

    The bank had proposed the appointment of a new board including Akash Suri, Sanjay Nambiar, Vijay Bhatt, Haripriya Padmanabhan, Girish Paranjape, Narayan Vasudeo Prabhutendulkar, and Arvind Nachaya Mapangada.

    Dish TV India board rejected the EGM notice by Yes Bank stating that a resolution to reconstitute the board can only be placed post receipt of approval from the ministry of information and broadcasting and other requisite approvals for appointment of new directors, within statutory guidelines.

    Yes Bank moved National Company Law Tribunal Mumbai with a petition to call for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders of Dish TV India and pass its resolution. 

  • Yes Bank issues notice to Dish TV India calling for EGM

    Yes Bank issues notice to Dish TV India calling for EGM

    Mumbai: Yes Bank has called for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders of Dish TV India Ltd, after the latter sought an extension on its annual general meeting (AGM) scheduled for 27 September.

    The bank had issued a notice on 6 September calling for a resolution for the removal of the current board of directors of the company and appointment of a new board of directors including Akash Suri, Sanjay Nambiar, Vijay Bhatt, Haripriya Padmanabhan, Girish Paranjape, Narayan Vasudeo Prabhutendulkar, and Arvind Nachaya Mapangada.

    It had called for the ouster of Dish TV India’s managing director Jawaher Goel, and directors Ashok Mathai Kurien, Bhagwan Das Narang, Shankar Aggarwal, and Dr Rashmi Aggarwal.

    Yes Bank alleged that Dish TV India is seeking an extension of the AGM based on “unfounded reasons.” “In light of the company engaging in dilatory tactics in placing the resolution before the shareholders, the bank is constrained to issue the present notice for holding an extraordinary general meeting of the company,” it said.

    Dish TV India had notified the bank that a change in directorship requires prior approval of the ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) and hence the resolutions for removal and appointment of directors cannot be placed before the shareholders at the AGM.

    To which the bank issued revised notices to the company on 9 September wherein the effectiveness in change in the directorship of the company was subject to MIB approval. The bank submitted details of the proposed list of directors to apply to MIB and seek their approval on 18 September.

    The bank believes that Dish TV India is not acting in line with good corporate governance standards and is not fairly representing the interests of the incumbent significant shareholders of the company. Its grievances include the company’s decision to move ahead with its capital raising exercise to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore by way of rights issue without consulting the significant shareholders.

  • Dish TV seeks more time to convene AGM, defers 27 Sep meeting

    Dish TV seeks more time to convene AGM, defers 27 Sep meeting

    New Delhi: Dish TV has sought additional time to convene the next Annual General Meeting (AGM), which was initially scheduled to be held on 27 September. The company has cited some regulatory approvals, that it needs to obtain before going ahead with the meeting.

    The DTH company has informed the BSE, that its Board of Directors has approved the application for postponing the AGM scheduled on 27 September. The new date of the meeting has not been disclosed yet, however, as per rules, the meeting could happen any time before 30 December.

    Earlier this month, one of its prime shareholders YES Bank, which holds 25.63 per cent stake in Dish TV India Ltd had sent a special notice to the company, seeking the removal of the current directors and managing director. The proposal was to be tabled at the upcoming annual 33rd general meeting.

    In its communique to the stock exchange on Sunday, the company has stated that the proposed changes in the Board are subject to applicable regulatory permissions and also other approvals which the Company requires to obtain. While it has already sent the applications to the Lenders for seeking their consent for the said change in the Board of Directors of the Company under applicable covenants, the approval is still awaited.

    “Accordingly, in order to ensure compliance of all applicable laws and guidelines in respect of the Notices sent by YBL and also to ensure that the Company does not default on any of the regulatory and lender covenants, the Board of Directors of the Company have approved making requisite applications as per provisions of the Companies Act for seeking extension of time under applicable regulatory provisions for convening the AGM of the Company, so that the Company has sufficient time to evaluate, analyse and to ensure compliance of all applicable regulatory, and other approvals as required by the law and avoid any non-compliance to contractual obligations,” it wrote.

    In its special notice to Dish TV, Yes Bank had sought the removal of Rashmi Aggarwal, Shankar Aggarwal, Bhagwan Das Narang, and Ashok Mathai Kurien as directors, along with Jawahar Lal Goel as managing director of the company under Section 169 of the Companies Act, 2013. This would also remove Goel from the post of chairperson of the Company.

    The Bank had alleged that the current Dish TV Board was “not acting in line with good corporate governance standards and is not a fair representation of the incumbent significant shareholders of the Company” which hold about 45 per cent shareholding in the Company.

    In its notice, Yes Bank had also proposed to reconstitute the board with – Yes Bank senior group president and general counsel Sanjay Nambiar, Yes Bank, country head, stressed asset management, Akash Suri, former KPMG executive Viiav Bhatt, litigation counsel Haripriya Padmanabhan,  Wipro’s IT business former Co-CEO Girish Paranjape, independent management consultant Narayan Vasudeo Prabhutendulkar and Arvind Nachaya.

    Dish TV had responded to the notice, stating that the proposed new directors could be appointed only after obtaining approvals from the ministry of information and broadcasting. and other requisite approvals for appointment of new directors, within the statutory timelines.

  • Regulation & development of telecom sector must be blended, Prasad tells TRAI

    Regulation & development of telecom sector must be blended, Prasad tells TRAI

    NEW DELHI: Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) needs to understand that regulation and development of the telecom sector must be blended and the regulator should be made accountable to the Parliament.

     

    He said digital power, accelerated by smart phones in the hands of young people, has enormous potential to drive ‘Digital India’ and achieve the dreams of aspirational India.

     

    While the programme currently focuses on digital delivery of health, education, grocery and tourism services, “there is a need to promote e-health, e-education, e-internet, e-tourism and e-commerce,” he said while addressing the 88th Annual General Meeting of FICCI  over the weekend. 

     

    Prasad said, “‘Digital India’ should be empowered by private sector participation as it will provide a roadmap where good service and good productivity will also give good returns.”

     

    He also stressed on the importance of quick and fair decision making. Initiatives undertaken include strengthening the e-highway, expanding the optical fibre network and opening of BPOs centres in smaller cities and towns. 

     

    The Minister mentioned about measures being taken to improve the Indian postal service. He said that the massive postal network in the rural areas should be converted into community service centres and the postal department should be scaled up to provide e-commerce services and should be aggressively persuaded to enter into baking segment.

  • Srinivasan Swamy re-elected as IAA president for the fourth time

    Srinivasan Swamy re-elected as IAA president for the fourth time

    MUMBAI: RK Swamy Hansa group chairman Srinivasan Swamy has been re-elected as International Advertising Association (IAA) India chapter president for the fourth consecutive term.

     

    Swamy, who also holds the post of IAA Asia Pacific vice president development, was elected at the body’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 30 September.

     

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com Swamy says, “IAA in India is already seen as the most active industry body. We will build further on our strength and bring more programs and initiatives that will be embraced by the industry.”

     

    “I am humbled by the confidence shown by the members in choosing me to head this international body in India. The last three years have been exciting in that we demonstrated to the marketing and advertising community through the initiatives and events we held that IAA is a thought leader in many respects. Further the awards that we have instituted were both relevant and meaningful,” he further added.

     

    Hungama.com managing director & CEO Neeraj Roy was re-elected as the vice president for the third term. HBO India former MD Monica Tata was re-elected as secretary and Deshdoot Publications joint MD Janakl Sarda was elected as the treasurer.

     

    In addition, Abhishek Karnani, Vishakha Singh, Jaideep Gandhi, Anand Sankeshwar and Manish Advani were the five members elected as members of the managing committee. Kaushik Roy continues on the committee as the immediate past president.

     

    IAA Asia Pacific area director Pradeep Guha said, “The last few years have seen considerable momentum in terms of the activities IAA has been involved in. This has been reflected in the World Board recognising the India Chapter as the Best Chapter twice consecutively. I am delighted that Srinivasan Swamy will be steering the India Chapter of the IAA this year as well. It could be a period of continued growth as well as consolidation. The presence of young leaders on the managing committee augurs well for the future of the IAA.”

     

    At the first managing committee meeting immediately after the AGM, five additional members were co-opted as per IAA Constitution including M V Shreyams Kumar, Dr Bhaskar Das, Ashok Venkatramani, CVL Srinivas and Pradeep Dwivedi.

     

    Pradeep Guha, Ramesh Narayan, Sam Balsara, MG Parameswaran, Raj Nayak, Atit Mehta, Vikram Sakhuja and Kunal Lalani are the following senior professionals that were invited to be part of the Committee.

  • Come December, Reliance Jio sojourn set to begin

    Come December, Reliance Jio sojourn set to begin

    MUMBAI: Come December and Mukesh Ambani’s ambitious 4G project – Reliance Jio is all set to sail on its commercial juggernaut.

     

    After expending money to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore in acquiring spectrum rights across the country, the company is targeting to provide 4G services across India with an investment of more than Rs 70,000 crore.

     

    Addressing shareholders in its annual general meeting, Reliance Industries chairman and managing director Mukesh D Ambani said that 2016-17 would be the first full year of commercial operations for Jio.

     

    Ambani also highlighted the path travelled and the roadmap ahead for Reliance Jio.

     

    Read on:  

     

    Current Jio Scenario

     

    Jio is now present in all of the 29 states of India, with a direct physical presence in nearly 18,000 Indian cities and towns. Jio’s wireless footprint extends even further and covers over one lakh villages. The company is expanding this footprint to cover nearly 80 per cent of India’s population by the end of this year.

     

    “Our roadmap is to have 100 per cent national coverage within the next three years. In rural areas, we are prioritizing connectivity to thousands of schools. This is to ensure that the benefit of our broadband initiative is first and foremost felt by students who stand to gain the most by accessing the information highway,” said Ambani.

     

    Jio Progress

      

    Jio has deployed a network of nearly 250,000 route kilometres of fibre optics, thereby creating a future-proof digital backbone across India. Over the next three years, Jio will gather more than double this fibre footprint by deploying fibre optics in the last mile.

    “We are using this deep fibre network also to ramp-up our fibre-to-the-home deployment. By April of next year, we would have connected over one million homes via fibre with a capability of rapidly scaling up in the top 50 cities of India,” he informed.

     

    To support India’s prominent participation in this revolution, Jio has operationalized nearly half a million square feet of its own next-generation Cloud data centers. Work is underway to double this capacity over the next year. The Jio team now comprises 17,500 full-time employees, who have successfully managed dozens of world-class technology partners and more than 150,000 people on the ground to achieve this rollout.

     

    Jio Technical Achievements

     

    “Even as Jio undertakes this mammoth rollout, we continue to take steps to further strengthen its competitive position. Our acquisition of wireless spectrum during the spectrum auctions conducted in March of this year is a case in point,” said Ambani.

     

    In addition to the existing Pan India 2300 MHz spectrum and 1800 MHz in 14 circles, Jio invested over Rs 10,000 crore during this year’s auction to acquire 800 MHz spectrum in 10 circles and 1800 MHz spectrum in six circles.

     

    Total Jio Investment

     

    Having invested a war chest of Rs 34,000 crore in spectrum assets, Jio now has the largest footprint of liberalized spectrum in the country, acquired in an extremely cost effective manner.

     

    “We have an end-to-end initial capacity to serve in excess of 100 million wireless broadband and 20 million fibre-to-the-home customers, with capability to easily expand further as the business scales up. We are currently in the pre-launch testing and stabilization phase of this large and complex network. Over the next few months, we will initiate an extensive beta launch involving millions of friendly customers across all our markets. This beta program will be upgraded into commercial operations around December of this year,” Ambani asserted.

     

    Full Fledged Jio Launch

     

    Ambani said that the financial year 2016-17 will be the first full year of commercial operations for Jio.

     

    It is interesting to note that in China 4G LTE devices as a percentage of overall device shipment has increased from 10 per cent to over 84 per cent in just the past year and Ambani expects a similar trend to emerge in India.

     

    “The combination of Jio’s strong initiatives and a supportive global environment, gives me the confidence that we will see 4G LTE smartphones in India at prices below Rs 4,000 by December of this year,” he said.

     

    Reliance Jio’s Stand

     

    Touting Jio as much more than just telecom services, Ambani said that it is well positioned to emerge as a global Tier-1 telecom operator.

     

    “The three-pronged combination of broadband networks, affordable smartphones and the availability of rich content and applications has created a global information tsunami,” Ambani said.

     

    In April this year, Reliance launched first mobile application, Jio Chat, which is a communication application that integrates chat, voice, video calling, conferencing, file sharing, photo sharing and much more in a single application. In just the first few weeks of operations, Jio Chat acquired over a million active users, without any paid promotions or paid advertisements whatsoever.

     

    Upcoming Jio Apps

     

    Switch-and-Walk app: Allows customers to seamlessly copy everything from their old phone to a new phone. The app will help to sync all contacts, messages, photos, music, media and applications from one phone to another, wirelessly, with a few easy clicks.

     

    Jio Drive: It is an application that will bring powerful cloud capabilities to every smartphone. Using Jio Drive, anyone can store, sync and share any content between their own devices and also with their friends. This is the type of capabilities that only large enterprises are able to provide to their employees. With Jio Drive, every consumer and small business owner will have this ability.

      

    Jio News and Entertainment Innovations

     

    Network 18 has 17 news channels, 14 entertainment channels, in eight languages and a strong set of internet businesses that will be transited to the Jio platform.

     

    “We are working to transform all of these to build and sustain leadership in each of these areas. By 2017-18 it will be the most integrated TV mobile set of content in India. I am privileged- to have Adil Zainulbhai from the Board to guide this initiative,” added Ambani

     

    Jio MSO License

     

    Earlier this year, Jio also applied for a pan-India cable television multi-system operator (MSO) license and has plans to enter the broadcast TV distribution. Ambani told shareholders that he would apprise them of further progress in the forthcoming AGM.

     

    “We have created a legacy free, next-generation voice and broadband network, which can be seamlessly upgraded even to 5G and beyond. We will deliver the gold standard for coverage and capacity, and push to raise the bar even further with small cells. In everything that we have done at Jio, we have lived by the three mantras of ‘Simple, Smart and Secure.’ However, I believe that Jio’s role is much larger than just offering its own services,” Ambani concluded.

  • Disney shareholders re-elect board; reject split of CEO & chairman roles

    Disney shareholders re-elect board; reject split of CEO & chairman roles

    MUMBAI: Shareholders of The Walt Disney Company at the 2015 Annual Meeting today elected all 10 members of the Board of Directors and supported Board recommendations on the Company’s auditor and the advisory vote on executive compensation, based on preliminary results.

     

    Shareholders agreed with the Board in rejecting two shareholder proposals, one regarding the future selection of an independent Board chairman, and the other limiting accelerated executive pay.

     

    Disney chairman and CEO Robert A. Iger welcomed shareholders to the meeting at The Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco and introduced independent lead director Orin C. Smith and the other members of the Board of Directors.

     

    “We’ve had four straight years of record results. Driven by extraordinary creativity, innovative technology and global expansion, 2014 was in fact the best year in our history. Our revenue was up 8 per cent to $48.8 billion, our net income was up 22 per cent to $7.5 billion, and our EPS was up 26 per cent to $4.26.

     

    “Total shareholder return for the year was 38 per cent — almost double the 20 per cent return delivered by the S&P 500 during the same period—and we also paid our 59th straight year of dividends, increasing the dividend per share by 34 per cent,” Iger noted.

     

    Iger introduced Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios chief creative officer John Lasseter, who announced that Disney will be making Frozen 2, reuniting the same creative team and cast from the first film. 

     

    Iger also announced that Star Wars: Episode VIII will be released 26 May, 2017, and that the first stand-alone Star Wars movie featuring characters and events beyond the core Star Wars saga will be titled Rogue One and released in December 2016.

     

    Based on preliminary results, all Disney Directors standing for election were re-elected to the Board: Susan E. Arnold, John S. Chen, Jack Dorsey, Robert A. Iger, Fred H. Langhammer, Aylwin B. Lewis, Monica C. Lozano, Robert W. Matschullat, Sheryl K. Sandberg and Orin C. Smith.

     

    Shareholders ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company’s independent accountants for the fiscal year ending October 3, 2015. They also approved the advisory resolution on executive compensation.

     

    Final voting tallies from this year’s annual meeting are subject to certification by the company’s inspector of elections, and will be included in the company’s report to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within a week.