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Amarchand, Luthra dish up Apollo satellite TV stake

satellite-dishes_by-Velo_Steve
satellite-dishes_by-Velo_Steve

The Delhi offices of Amarchand Mangaldas and Luthra & Luthra have advised Dish TV in issuing GDRs (Global Depository Receipts) worth Rs. 465 crores ($100m) to Apollo Management for an 11 per cent stake in the company.

Luthra & Luthra capital markets partner Madhurima Mukherjee, senior associates Jitesh Shahani and associate Kaushik Laik led the team for Dish TV, which is a company owned by the Zee group.

It is understood that Luthra & Luthra is the main adviser of Dish TV having worked with it on the majority of its past transactions.

Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi banking partner Gunjan Shah was the lead partner for New York based Apollo Management and was assisted by principal associate Prashant Gupta.

Apollo is an asset management company that already has assets an excess of $50 billion in private equity and credit oriented capital markets invested across industries.

Dish TV has a subscriber base of six million and it plans to increase its presence in the direct-to-home (DTH) market through a fresh infusion of funds following the issue of the GDRs.

Dish TV had originally planned to raise Rs. 1,000 crores from foreign markets by issuing foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs).

Desai & Diwanji Delhi partner Dheeraj Malhotra and associate Umang Pathak were instructed to advise Deutsche Bank that acted as depository in the planned public issue, which was superseded by the Apollo GDR purchase.

Malhotra said: "It is a regular plain vanilla transaction except for the size and magnitude."

"This transaction is done at a time when the market has started looking upwards, so it has been able to use the change in sentiments to its advantage," he added.

Photo by Velo Steve

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