The several-month-old takeover bid by Rahejas was successfully completed the other day when the Chennai-based holding company, Asianet Communications Ltd, promoted jointly by media celebrity Sashi Kumar and his uncle Raji Menon, a Moscow-based NRI businessman, agreed to sell their remaining 50 per cent shares in the Thiruvananthapuram-based ASCL to Hathway Investments, which has been already holding 50 per cent stake. The price at which the shares were transferred is being kept a closely guarded secret.

However, Asianet sources said the shares were sold to Rahejas at a fancy price. Hathway Investments helmsman Sankaranarayanan told The Financial Express over the phone from Mumbai that the plan was to run Asianet more professionally. ``We would ensure value-added service to the customers and hasten the paceof infotech revolution in the most-literate State.'' He, however, declined to disclose the details of the deal. Sankaranarayanan hastened to add that his group would invest more in the days to come for improving the services.

Asianet officials here are tightlipped on the deal. Company secretary KP Sukumaran, when contacted, confirmed the takeover. He said he did not know anything more about the deal. Sukumaran, who was summoned by Rahejas for discussions, flew to Mumbai on Thursday.

ASCL senior general manager Krishna Kumar said he had received a two-line message from Chennai on Wednesday evening informing him that Hathway Investments were now in full control of the company. He refused to give further details. Krishna Kumar has been running the show on behalf of Sashi Kumar in the absence of the managing director, who was sacked a few months ago by Sashi Kumar, for allegedly owing allegience to the Rahejas. Managing director PM Radhakrishnan Nair, former CBI director, had challenged his abrupt removalbefore the court.

The removal of the MD, without taking into confidence the nominees of Rahejas on the Asianet board and subsequent developments, had strained the relations between Sashi Kumar's ACL and Rahejas' Hathway Investments. A few legal battles had been fought between them on the MD issue. This had brought some bad publicity for the company and the channel.

The dramatic turn in which the remaining shares were transferred smoothly to Hathway Investments by ACL followed the intervention of Sashi Kumar's uncle Raji Menon. Sashi Kumar was initially irked by his uncle's recent bid to assert himself in Asianet. In the Chennai-based mother company, Sashi Kumar and Raji Menon hold 50 per cent stakes each. The outright sale of the Thiruvananthapuram company is reportedly at the initiative and instance of Raji Menon. As Menon holds 50 per cent shares in the Chennai company, he also has a shareholding equal to that of Sashi Kumar in the Thiruvananthapuram company.

The first batch of 50 per cent shares inASCL was purchased from ACL by Hathway Investments at a price of Rs 55 ie shares of the face value Rs 3.5 crore were purchased at a consideration of Rs 19.25 crore, giving the promoters a profit of Rs 15.75 crore. Another feature of the original deal was that in addition to the appreciation of shares worth Rs 3.5 crore on consideration of Rs 19.25 crore, Hathway had agreed to invest Rs 13.25 crore worth of capital in ASCL. The original promoters -- ACL -- by getting Rs 19.25 crore on sale of shares worth Rs 3.5 crore, got ample leverage to invest a further amount of Rs 13.25 crore in the equity capital of ASCL, by which ACL and Hathway Investments got equal holding of 50 per cent each in ASCL.

Hathway and ACL had five directors each in the 10-member ASCL board.

Asianet, besides being the premier Malayalam TV channel, has a wide cable network, spread all over Kerala. The company claims to have over 80,000 cable connections. ASCL has about 300 employees who are now concerned about their future in viewof the takeover by Rahejas. Almost all the staff have been loyal to Sashi Kumar whose father-in-law and popular Malayalam poet and lyricist P Bhaskaran is the chairman of ASCL. Sashi Kumar heads the Chennai-based ACL. A pall of gloom has set in at the Asianet headquarters here. Also, franchisees and local cable operators are worried about their future. Asianet circles said Sashi Kumar had promised to come down to Thiruvananthapuram within a couple of days. Hathway group chief Sankaranarayanan is also expected here next week.

Sankaranarayan said ASCL would be totally independent and would have nothing to do with ACL. Asked whether the present practice of purchasing software from ASCL for the channel would continue, he replied in the negative.

Asianet was launched in September, 1992. An attempt was made in the meantime to rope in an American company, Falcon, to contribute to the equity share capital of Asianet. The permission of the government had also been obtained for investment by Falcon in ASCL. But,finally, after the ``due diligence study'' of ASCL accounts Falcon withdrew.

Now the developments in Asianet coincide with the raging channel war in the State with the launch of Surya TV, Sun Network's Malayalam channel, and the Zee TV planning to launch a channel in Malayalam soon.