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Tag: Margo Networks

  • Zee vs Railtel arbitration: tribunal dismisses claims by both

    Zee vs Railtel arbitration: tribunal dismisses claims by both

    MUMBAI: Railtel Corp and Zee Entertainment have been at loggerheads for the past three years.

    The bone of contention has been the cancellation of a 10 year contract that Zee’s subsidiary Margo Networks had signed with the former in March 2021 to provide content on demand (movies, news, music videos, and general entertainment) free of buffering onboard 8,731 trains including 5,723 suburban trains and more than 5,952 wi-fi-enabled railway stations. As part of this, media servers were to be installed in railway coaches.

    The Railway Board had assigned Railtel with the task of implementing this dream project which had then subcontracted it to Margo. Revenue expectations were high with the Railways hoping to pocket at least Rs 60 crore as part of the 50:50 arrangement it had made with Railtel.

    The project had moved to pilot implementation stage in a Rajdhani train and in an AC rake of the western railways.

    And then it was called off suddenly in November 2021. Railtel said, it was due to the alleged non-performance of Margo Networks. Zee Entertainment had disagreed and announced that it would haul Railtel to the courts.

    In August 2023, it started arbitration proceedings against Railtel for cancelling the contract and claimed amounts wrongfully forfeited by the latter along with costs/damages. The matter had been with the arbitral tribunal since then.

    Zee Entertainment, on 26 November 2025, informed  the BSE in a regulatory filing, that the arbitral tribunal had made its arbitral award. As part of that, it had rejected its and Margo’s claims against Railtel. It added that the tribunal had  also rejected the counter claims made by Railtel.

    Zee added that it is “evaluating the option of filing an application/appeal before the appropriate court for setting aside of the arbitral award.”

    Clearly, we have not seen the last of this courtroom saga. 

  • ZeeL to scale down investment in SugarBox significantly

    ZeeL to scale down investment in SugarBox significantly

    KOLKATA: When things aren’t working out, it’s better you step back until they start looking better.  Exactly how Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) is doing with its investment in internet connectivity start-up Margo Networks. It was barely a year ago that it had announced that it would invest Rs 522 crore in the latter which offers bandwidth to consumers under the brand name SugarBox.

    The broadcaster aimed to create a tech-content synergy through the investment in order to help subscribers get over connectivity constraints that plague India’s mobile networks. However, Zeel has decided to scale down its investment in SugarBox owing to the changing situation.

    “Given the current pandemic and uncertainties, we will not be investing very aggressively behind SugarBox. From our original plan itself, it will be scaled down significantly for the foreseeable future,” ZeeL MD & CEO Punit Goenka said during an investors’ call.

    Of all the reasons behind the decision, one is that the project has been delayed significantly. ZeeL was expecting it to roll out in February but the pandemic has hindered its execution. As no one knows how long Covid2019 will last, there are fair chances of a further delay.

    “More importantly, even after everything stabilises, we don’t know how the traffic will build. Traffic consumption was very different when we planned the project. For FY22, we do not see that kind of investment that we were planning earlier,” ZeeL investor relations, corporate strategy head Bijal Shah said.

    Reduction in non-core investments in Sugarbox due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a welcome step, brokerage firm Motilal Oswal said in a recent note.

    “The unique technology will enable us to serve content to consumers across the nation, without being restricted by connectivity constraints. We are confident that this synergy will create a strong foundation for us, as we progress towards offering relevant content to consumers across platforms,” Goenka said at the time of the investment.

    However, analysts were sceptical of the timeliness of the investment from the beginning. Brokerage firms found it ill-timed due to a weak ad environment.

    In the year 2017, ZeeL had acquired an 80 per cent equity stake in SugarBox. The latter creates a hyperlocal data distribution ecosystem by installing CDN Edge servers at key places of interest (POIs), which users can connect to over a local Wi-Fi network.