ITV

Tag: Merrill Lynch

  • Aditi Kothari Desai takes the reins at DSP Asset Managers

    Aditi Kothari Desai takes the reins at DSP Asset Managers

    MUMBAI:  Aditi Kothari Desai has been named chairperson of DSP Asset Managers, stepping into the top job from her father, Hemendra Kothari, who has led the firm since its inception in 1996. Aditi, the fifth-generation custodian of the Kothari family’s financial empire, is also the first woman to lead the firm.

    With over 20 years of experience across investments, sales, marketing and digital transformation, Aditi started her career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch, New York. She joined DSP Asset Managers in 2002 and has since spearheaded the firm’s domestic growth strategy, founded its international business, and driven digital transformation. She also chairs DSP’s fintech arm, Compound Express.

    A Wharton graduate with an MBA from Harvard, Aditi is determined to uphold DSP’s legacy. “I am honored to take on this responsibility and continue building on our AMC’s legacy. This transition is simply a continuation of the same long-term thinking and investor-first philosophy that has defined DSP’s journey for over 160 years, and I intend to continue our endeavor to make a difference to and elevate as many lives as we can. We are one of the few fully independent family-run firms among India’s top 10 asset managers, and our family continues to invest its own public fund capital into the very funds we manage which speaks to our deep conviction and accountability,” she elaborated.

    Her father, Hemendra Kothari,  a towering figure in India’s financial sector, is confident in her leadership.  Said he: “It has been a privilege to lead DSP Asset Managers since its inception. While I am passing the baton to my dear daughter Aditi, I feel proud to see our family’s legacy continue with a visionary leader who embodies the values of reputation, integrity, and high standards that have guided us for generations. Our unwavering commitment to these principles has been the cornerstone of our success, and I am confident that Aditi will uphold these traditions while leading the firm into a new era of innovation, digitization and growth.” 

  • WWE Studios closes $35 million credit facility with Bank Of America Merrill Lynch

    WWE Studios closes $35 million credit facility with Bank Of America Merrill Lynch

    MUMBAI: Santa Monica, CA-based WWE Studios has closed on a revolving credit facility worth $35 million with Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML).  The deal comes after a multi-year successful run by the production company.

     

    With this new arrangement, WWE Studios expects to extend and grow their partnership base, which already includes Warner Bros., Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox.

     

    The proceeds of the facility will allow WWE Studios to execute further on its key strategy for long-term growth, increasing the number of mid-size budgets films, similar to The Call and Oculus, on its slate. The funds will also go toward the expansion of the acquisition slate.

     

    “WWE Studios is an amazing brand with a history of creating content with fascinating characters and storylines. This new facility will provide WWE Studios the capacity to build on the momentum from the last several years by producing and acquiring more branded and genre films.  The various platforms and global reach of both BofAML and WWE creates the perfect collaboration,” said Bank of America Merrill Lynch senior vice president Randy Hua.

     

    “This new relationship with Bank of America Merrill Lynch gives us the opportunity to be involved in higher profile films and expand talent relationships. Our audience craves larger-than-life stories, and we’re looking forward to using this new facility to bring even more of those stories to the big screen,” added WWE Studios president Michael Luisi.

     

    “The credit facility enhances WWE’s financial flexibility and is consistent with WWE’s film strategy and planned investment levels as previously communicated,” said WWE chief strategy and financial officer George Barrios.

     

    WWE Studios most recently launched a new label, Erebus Pictures, with media mogul Gene Simmons, which is set to finance and produce elevated horror movies.

     

    WWE Studios titles include The Call with Halle Berry and WWE Superstar David Otunga, Oculus directed by Mike Flanagan starring Karen Gillan and Katee Sackhoff,  Dead Man Down starring Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Terrence Howard and featuring WWE Superstar Bad News Barrett, The Marine franchise featuring WWE Superstars John Cena, The Miz and WWE Diva Summer Rae, and Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, which paired animated versions of WWE Superstars with Scooby and the gang.  Upcoming releases include Incarnate with Blumhouse Pictures starring Aaron Eckhart and featuring WWE Superstar Mark Henry, and a sequel to Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery starring WWE legend Hulk Hogan.

  • Merrill Lynch, Nomura Mauritius pick up 14.2% in NDTV for Rs 700 mn

    Merrill Lynch, Nomura Mauritius pick up 14.2% in NDTV for Rs 700 mn

    MUMBAI: Merrill Lynch and Nomura Mauritius have picked up 7.92 and 6.25 per cent stake respectively in the news broadcaster NDTV, paving the way for private equity firm DE Shaw to consolidate its holdings through these two transactions to 14.2 per cent for Rs 700 million.

    The two investment firms have picked up the shares on behalf of DE Shaw from the open market on NSE and BSE, according to market sources.

    Merrill Lynch picked up 5.1 million shares of NDTV from Goldman Sachs, which offloaded its entire stake for Rs 76.55 per share. Merrill Lynch has shelled our Rs 390.9 million for the transaction.
      
         
      Nomura Mauritius, on the other hand, has bought the shares from GS Mace Holdings, which exited NDTV by selling its 4 million shares for a total of 308.5 million.

    When contacted, NDTV Group CEO KVL Narayan Rao said he is not aware of DE Shaw taking stake in NDTV. “You can‘t expect us to comment on any transaction that is made in the open market where we are not involved,” Rao added.

    NDTV operates three news channels NDTV 24X7, NDTV India and NDTV Profit. It also runs a lifestyle channel, NDTV Good Times.

  • Telefonica puts Endemol up for sale

    Telefonica puts Endemol up for sale

    MUMBAI: Telefonica, which has a majority stake in global television format creator and distributor Endemol is looking to sell the firm.

    In India Endemol recently completed one year of existence.

    Telefonica has a 75 per cent stake in the firm. However US media conglomerate News Corp has said that it has no interest in buying Endemol. There was a report that had said that News Corp was circling around the firm.

    A News Corp spokesman described speculation of interest in Endemol as being nonsense. Executives from the Spanish telecommunications firm Telefonica are believed to be arranging a deal with Merrill Lynch to sell its majority stake in Endemol. Disney has also said that it is not interested in buying the firm. Endemol, reports indicate, has a market value of around $3.4 billion.

    The acquisition of Endemol makes sense for global media firms. It allows them to put new formats and existing endemol formats into their channels. Reports also state that Endemol’s chief creative content officer Peter Bazalgette has been touted as someone who might lead a management buyout of the company.

    But a move to lead a buyout would require him to leave Endemol’s board, something he has not indicated any desire to do.

  • Sun fixes share swap ratio of Gemini, Udaya merger

    Sun fixes share swap ratio of Gemini, Udaya merger

    MUMBAI: Sun TV Ltd. has approved the share swap ratio for the merger of Gemini TV Pvt. Ltd. and Udaya TV Pvt. Ltd. with itself. The shareholders of Gemini will get 1.78 shares of Sun TV for every one share held. Gemini posted a revenue of Rs 1.75 billion and a net profit of Rs 451 million for the year ended 31 March 2006. The company owns Gemini TV, Teja TV, Gemini News, Gemini Music and Gemini Cable Vision.

    Udaya shareholders will get 19.72 shares of Sun TV for every one share held. Udaya revenues for the last fiscal stood at Rs 943 million while net profit was at Rs 253 million. The company owns four television channels, Udaya TV, Udaya Movies, Udaya Varthegalu and Udaya TV II. All the divisions of Udaya, except the FM radio division, will be merged with Sun TV Ltd.

    Sun will issue a total of 17.8 million shares to Gemini shareholders and 11.8 million shares to Udaya shareholders. On completion of the merger, the company is proposed to be renamed as Sun TV Network Ltd.

    “After the proposed amalgamation and merger, the outstanding equity share capital of the company will increase from 68,889,155 to 98,521,155 equity shares of Rs 10/- each. The additional 29,632,000 shares proposed to be issued will constitute 30 per cent of the enlarged equity capital of the company,” Sun TV said in a statement.

    The board of Sun took on record the suggestions made by Enam Financial Consultants and DSP Merrill Lynch and approved the valuation report submitted by the independent chartered accountant N Subramanian.

    “Sun, Gemini and Udaya boards have approved the Scheme of Arrangement which governs the above amalgamation and merger,” the company said.

    The merger, however, is subject to final approval by shareholders, creditors and the High Court.

    With the merger, Sun will increase the number of television channels in its bouquet from six to 15. “The proposed amalgamation and merger will enable us to build a dominant presence in entire south India, and emerge as one of the largest and most profitable television broadcasters in India,” Sun said.

  • Gemini, Udaya valuation report by Thursday: Maran

    Gemini, Udaya valuation report by Thursday: Maran

    MUMBAI: Sun TV Ltd has decided to merge satellite broadcasting companies Gemini TV Pvt Ltd and Udaya TV Pvt Ltd (except its FM radio division) with itself. Enam Financial Consultants and DSP Merrill Lynch have been appointed as advisors and the valuation report is expected to be submitted soon.

    The final holding of the shareholders of Gemini and Udaya in Sun TV Ltd. will, thus, depend on the share swap ratio. The equity shares of Udaya TV, as of 7 March 2006, are held by Kalanithi Maran (66.67), S. Selvam (16.67 per cent) and S Selvi (16.66 per cent). In Gemini, Maran has 26.5 per cent, Kal Communication (a promoter Group company), 23.5 per cent, K Bharathi 30 per cent, Indira Anand 16 per cent and A Sai Siva Jyoti 4 per cent.

    Indiantelevision.com was the first to report that Sun TV would be merging Gemini TV and Udaya TV with itself. Maran’s broadcasting interests in the southern languages would, thus, be consolidated under a single company.

    When contacted, promoter Kalanithi Maran had this to say: “We are expecting the report from Enam and DSP Merrill by Thursday. The shareholders of Gemini and Udaya TV will be given shares in Sun TV based on this.”

    Gemini TV posted a revenue of Rs 1.75 billion for the year ended 31 March 2006. The company owns Gemini TV, Teja TV, Gemini News, Gemini Music and Gemini Cable Vision.

    Udaya TV’s revenues for the last fiscal stood at Rs 943 million. It owns four television channels, Udaya TV, Udaya Movies, Udaya Varthegalu and Udaya TV II.

    “With this proposed merger Sun TV shareholders should benefit immensely from the highly profitable operations and strong growth plans of both Gemini TV and Udaya TV. Sun will have an integrated growth strategy for all south Indian language channels, and thus build a dominant presence in entire south India,” Maran says.

    Sun TV currently operates four television channels – Sun TV, KTV, Sun News and Sun Music – in Tamil language and two television channels – Surya TV and Kiran TV – in Malayalam language, and three FM Radio Stations, and another three FM Radio Stations through its subsidiaries. The two subsidiaries, Kal Radio Ltd and South Asia FM Ltd, jointly hold 41 FM radio licences for running stations across India.

    “With this proposed merger, Sun TV Ltd. will become one of the largest television broadcasters in India,” the company says in a statement.

    The Sun TV scrip gained 1.13 per cent today in the BSE to close the day at Rs 1528.45.

  • ‘The only thing that supercedes creativity is accountability’ : Laurence Boschetto – DraftFCB president & COO

    ‘The only thing that supercedes creativity is accountability’ : Laurence Boschetto – DraftFCB president & COO

    It was in June that media conglomerate Interpublic combined its Draft and Foote Cone & Belding (FCB) units around the world to create a channel-neutral agency model DraftFCB. Heading DraftFCB as its president-COO is Laurence Boschetto, previously president-COO of Draft.

     

    Hardly has Boschetto had time to gather his breath on the ramifications of the new entity has come an even more radical announcement. Which is that Interpublic is reorganizing its media operations with Initiative becoming aligned within DraftFCB and Universal McCann coming under McCann Worldgroup.

     

    The reorganisation came just ahead of news that the newly integrated DraftFCB has been awarded the account of retail behemoth Walmart worth an estimated $570 million. That the monster win came on top of new business that DraftFCB had won from Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Atari has been more than a validation for Boschetto and the team at DraftFCB.

     

    In conversation with Indiantelevision.com, Boschetto, who over the last three weeks “has been on the road to every single region introducing them to the new model”, throws some light on just what’s happening at DraftFCB, as too the vision thing with IPG.

     

    Excerpts:

    Is it fair to say that IPG’s reorganization of its media operations represents the most significant example of support for those against the unbundling of media that we have witnessed over the last 20 years or so? And extending that posit, can we then argue that making media and creative interdependent is the best way forward?

    Over the last decade we stripped everything out of an agency, we have taken strategic planning, we stripped away media and now they have basically become interchangeable parts, the ‘value has been devalued.’ So what we are doing right now is we look at the client, we look at the demands and pressures that they have, we look at the environment that their end user works in and we say ‘how do we change the game.’

     

    This might look like the old model but it’s packaged in the new model formulation, an offering of complete integration of products and services but not doing it syllogistically under the model.

     

    What we are saying is that there is one management team, there’s one P&L and the palette consists of all the different skill sets, so the clients don’t have to manage all those relationships and the agency can come back with a business solution orientation based on the real business issues rather than the disciplines that they are confident in.

     

    Today we often hear clients say, ‘I want channel agnosticism and discipline neutrality.’ Yet there isn’t really any channel agnosticism. We didn’t build organizations in the industry that way, we have people that are proficient in strategic planning, in branding, in advertising, in PR and in retail. Now they are asking for renaissance marketing communications people, that’s what this whole model is about, it’s about building another class of business builders in the marketing communication field.

    The new media strategy represents the third major organizational change Interpublic has instituted this year. What is the broad direction that IPG is taking with all this?

    When you take a look at the advertising industry, you cannot ignore client structuring and their constituent parts because this tends to have a ‘domino effect’. The environment that the customer lives in has radically changed, technology has changed they way that they live and breathe, how they interact and connect with each other, this has created one basic phenomena ‘immediacy’.

     

    Technology has changed the way we work and engage. This has put tremendous pressure on the CMOs, as they also live in an environment and at a time when their CEOs are demanding performance in their books. It is estimated that every CMO has a life expectancy of roughly 24 months. However, if they have to produce they will have to figure out how to navigate through a company, what the alliances are, who their end user is and quarter after quarter their performance based on real business metrics will determine what their life expectancy will be.
    ‘Over the last decade we stripped everything out of an agency, we have taken strategic planning, we stripped away media and now they have basically become interchangeable parts, the ‘value has been devalued’ ‘

    If you say that a CMO has an average 24 month life cycle, what happens if he continues to deliver what the client demands?

    As defined, stage I is to develop a way of operating to deliver that media and channel neutrality and agnosticism and that’s by bringing together not just one person to lead the business but all the discipline leaders at a round table, to form a team for the client.

    Now, if one client is more strategic in nature then they may have a strategic person in the key position, while someone else who is more data driven might have the data person heading it, but the way we think through the issues are holistic. The goal is that over time we are not expecting that someone who is highly proficient in strategic planning and database modeling to be interchangeable. But the person who heads up strategy must be able to think more holistically, so that when they come to a business situation they determine what’s right for the client.

    But will these individuals continue to function within their respective units?

    The goal is to make sure that the purity and the authority of every discipline still resides in an agency so that we never lose that foothold. In the process of giving clients that ‘channel agnosticism’, the days of only the account person holding that relationship, we are saying that before we get there we need to have a team consisting of media, strategic planning, account services and a creative database all sitting at the table and having an equal voice in determining how to solve a business issue.
  • China Mobile buys 19.9% of Phoenix from Star Group

    China Mobile buys 19.9% of Phoenix from Star Group

    MUMBAI: China Mobile (Hong Kong) Group Limited has purchased a 19.9 per cent interest in Phoenix from Star Group Limited. After the transaction, Star will continue to hold 17.6 per cent of Phoenix.

    China Mobile and Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited have also reached a strategic alliance to jointly develop, market and distribute wireless content, products, services and new media applications.

    Under the strategic alliance agreement, China Mobile and Phoenix will jointly develop products and services relating to the wireless delivery of media content. In exchange for direct access to China Mobile’s network and customer base on favourable terms, China Mobile will have preferential access to Phoenix’s news and selected programs. 

    The deal will complement China Mobile’s 3G strategies by widening its service offerings and providing enhanced media content to its mobile subscribers, and will broaden Phoenix’s new media content’s access to China mobile’s customer base, informs an official release.

    China Mobile chairman and CEO Wang Jianzhou says, “Phoenix offers a unique set of content to the Chinese community globally. By leveraging Phoenix’s media content via our mobile platform, China Mobile will be well positioned to provide wireless multimedia services to our customers.”

    Phoenix chairman and CEO Liu Changle adds, “The establishment of this new strategic alliance will provide an excellent opportunity for the further development of Phoenix’s new media business, and should have a very positive impact on Phoenix’s long-term commercial prospects, enabling Phoenix to distribute its content through China Mobile’s wireless platform and reach a broader market.”

    Star Group CEO Michelle Guthrie says, “We believe that bringing in China Mobile as a shareholder and strategic partner will create incredible growth opportunities for Phoenix in the future. We look forward to our continued involvement in Phoenix as the company extends its content to the largest wireless customer base in the world.”

    Goldman Sachs is acting as financial advisor to China Mobile. Merrill Lynch is acting as financial advisor to Star, according to the news release.

  • ABC, Fox up on Upfront, CBS flat, NBC to drop: Merrill Lynch report

    ABC, Fox up on Upfront, CBS flat, NBC to drop: Merrill Lynch report

    MUMBAI: Will it stay flat or will there be another fall? And how much longer will the annual highpoint event for television networks in the US – the broadcast upfront presentations – even matter to executives taking the call on where to put their advertising buck?

    As new digital media options open up, these are issues that TV execs in the US are having to grapple with increasingly in the upfront season but a report just out from investment firm Merrill Lynch does offer a window into what the future could hold. At least in the near to medium term. And contrary to the doomsayers, it is not all gloom for the networks in an age where a new generation of consumers are increasingly getting their entertainment fix outside of the TV screen.

    To quote from the report: “Generally speaking, we believe that traditional broadcasters may be better positioned for this market than credited given their multiple touch points with consumers, experience in content production, already large inventory of much sought after video content and strong relationships with advertisers.”

    The report further said that if advertisers opted to shift their spends to new digital platforms like broadband or mobile, “broadcasters are primed to attract a significant share of that spending with their offerings in the new arenas”.

    On the dollars gained front, the report predicts the major networks should wind up about flat or slightly lower than the $9.1 billion booked in 2005, when upfront spending fell 2 percent from the previous year. Among the networks, ABC again leads its rivals on the continued momentum delivered by its three big hit shows – Desperate Housewives, Lost and Grey’s Anatomy. Upfront commitments are predicted to increase 7 per cent to $2.23 billion. News Corp’s Fox meanwhile, shows the biggest projected growth of 12 per cent to reach $1.78 billion.

    Though CBS will only be up 1 per cent this year, by virtue of its having the largest ad pie share among the top four US networks means it will rack up $2.63 billion from the upfront.

    NBC continues the slide after seeing its prime-time ratings drop 14 per cent over the last year. Merrill Lynch predicts that NBC will decline 3 per cent this year, to touch $1.84 billion. Some consolation for the ratings challenged former numero uno network is that it has somewhat bottomed out from the disastrous 33 percent free fall it suffered last year.