Zee Tele shares sold to Singapore-based FII

Sibabrata Das & Anju Ghangurde

Mumbai, Aug 21: ZEE Telefilms (ZTL) promoters, who had kept the buyer a secret, appear to have sold 25 lakh of their shares to the Singapore-based foreign institutional investor (FII), Alliance Capital. This is part of their effort to repay to ZTL Rs 220 crore which they had borrowed to acquire shares of B4U and AB Corp.

ZTL, however, refused to reveal the name of the FII. “The shares were sold to a Singapore-based institutional investor. I am not in a position to say anything more than that as the selling was done by the promoters of ZTL,” said ZTL chief executive officer (corporate) RK Singh.

The third tranche of repayment, according to market sources, amounted to around Rs 26.62 crore. Earlier, the sale of 50 lakh shares was made to the US-based FII Oppenheimer for Rs 50 crore while Rs 60 crore was made in the first installment.

Oppenheimer held 4.01 per cent shares till June 30, 2001. Mr Subhash Chandra and other ZTL promoters had sold 50 lakh of their personal shares to the US-based FII on July 12. With this, the promoters holding fell by around 1 per cent to 59 per cent.

Delgrada Ltd, an overseas corporate body owned by Mr Chandra, diluted its holding of ZTL by 6.29 per cent to 36.26 per cent on June 30, 2001, from 42.55 per cent on September 30, 2000. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has found that Delgrada had sold a large quantity of Zee shares and remitted Rs 450 crore outside India during the period January 31, 2000, to March 30, 2001. Incidentally, a majority of the shares sold were through Triumph International Finance, a broking firm associated with Ketan Parekh.

The promoters holding was 59.59 per cent as on June 30, 2001. Of this, Indian promoters held 23.33 per cent while foreign promoters holding was 36.26 per cent.

After the sale of 50 lakh shares, Mr Chandra and promoters holding has fallen by 0.6 per cent, from 59 per cent. The FII holding stands at 22 per cent.