BENGALURU Reuters -- Indian billionaire Gautam Adani'sAdani's conglomerate has increased its stake in New Delhi Television to more than 37% through an open offer, making it the biggest shareholder of one of the country's most popular news networks.
Adani's group was looking to take another 26% stake in NDTV, but the open offer attracted only 5.3 million shares, resulting in an 8.3% interest in the company.
Adani acquired a 29.2% stake in NDTV last week by buying a company backed by the television network's founders, Radhika Roy and Prannoy Roy, who have a 32.3% stake in NDTV.
Some journalists believe that one of the country's last bastions of free media is under threat due to the port-to-energy conglomerate's takeover of NDTV.
After Adani's acquisition of NDTV's founder entity, Ravish Kumar, a senior executive editor of NDTV, resigned.
Adani has said he sees the takeover of NDTV as a responsibility rather than a business opportunity, and he has invited Prannoy Roy to remain chair when the acquisition is completed.
In the open offer that ended Monday, corporate investors gave 3.9 million shares, while retail investors offered to sell over 706,000 shares. It was not immediately clear who the participants were.
Adani had offered to buy NDTV shares at 294 rupees in the open offer, which represents a 25% discount on Monday's closing price.
Despite a successful open offer, Adani would have owned a majority stake in NDTV, but the 37.4% stake still makes him the single largest shareholder, said Shriram Subramanian, managing director of InGovern Research Services, a corporate governance advisory company.
Adani can still take control of the board by reconstituting it with the resulting shareholding. Subramanian said they can propose their own set of directors and remove current directors.
Adani had announced plans late in August to acquire a majority stake in NDTV, but he was faced with stiff opposition from the news network that said the billionaire's bid was executed without the consent of the NDTV founders.
After trying to block the takeover citing regulatory restrictions on moving shares, the entity backed by the NDTV founders transferred their entire shareholding to Adani last week.