Walt Disney buys 15% stake in UGBL

The Walt Disney Company has invested Rs 118 crore (Rs 1.18 billion) for a 15 per cent stake in UTV Global Broadcasting (UGBL), the broadcasting arm of UTV Software Communications. Walt Disney currently holds 300,000 equity shares in the company.

UTV Software Communications has been allotted 15,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each in UGBL. With this, UTV Software Communications will hold 75 per cent of the paid-up share capital of UGBL for Rs 240 crore (Rs 2.4 billion), making UGBL a subsidiary of UTV. The remaining 10 per cent is held by the promoter Ronnie Screwvala.

The company had said in February that Walt Disney would pick up 32.1 per cent in UTV Software Communications and 15 per cent in the UGBL for Rs 81.83 billion. UGBL launched four channels from September last year - youth entertainment channel, 'Bindass', movie channel, 'Bindass Movies', global films channel, 'World Movies', Hindi movie channel UTV Motion Pictures and business news channel UTVi.