Zee announces Rs2,000-crore fundraising plan

Zee Entertainment Enterprises, which scrapped a $10-billion merger with Sony, has now announced a Rs2,000-crore fund raising plan through  issuance of shares or eligible securities.

Zee had earlier considered various options for raising funds, including issuance of equity shares and/or via private placement, qualified institutional placement, preferential issue etc, subject to regulatory and other approvals.

Sony pulled out of the mega merger deal with Zee in January this year raising concerns over the likely continuation of Puneet Goenka as the chief executive of the merged entity.

Zee has since announced a slew of measures, including cutting 15 per cent of its workforce, to cut costs and stay afloat in its business. 

Zee also, last month, withdrew the merger implementation application against Sony from the NCLT.

The board of directors of ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Ltd had, on 17 April, approved  the streamlining of the company’s organisational structure as proposed by MD & CEO, Punit Goenka.

The company said the new lean organisational structure has been designed with the aim of leveraging synergies among core business segments, which include Broadcast,      Digital, Movies and Music and to nurture collaboration.      

Under the new organisational structure, Punit Goenka, as  MD & CEO, will assume     direct charge of critical business verticals, including Domestic Broadcast Business. 

Siju Prabhakaran, who heads Zee’s South channels, will take additional responsibility of the West cluster;

Samrat Ghosh, who heads the East channels, will take additional responsibility of North and Premium channels;      

Ruchir Tiwari will continue as head of the Hindi Movies cluster while  Vishnu Shankar will continue as head of TV and the FTA segment.

Ashish Sehgal will be responsible for Integrated Advertisement Sales for  the Broadcast and Digital business reporting to Amit Goenka. (for the Broadcast business revenue, he will continue to report to      the MD & CEO).

Amit Goenka will continue to lead the Digital Business for the company, taking direct charge    of original content (including    movies). He will assume additional charge of   the International Broadcast Business, Enterprise Technology and Broadcast Operations and Engineering. He will continue to report to the MD & CEO.

Anurag Bedi will continue to lead the Music business, reporting to the MD & CEO.

All corporate functionaries will continue to report  to the MD & CEO under the new structure with immediate effect, according to a company release.

Zee had reported a profit of Rs13.35 crore in the January-March 2024 quarter against a loss a year ago on the back of a 11 per cent increase in domestic advertising revenue.