Majority of Indians support Zee in takeover battle with Invesco

New Delhi, Oct 28 (IANS) An overwhelming majority of Indians seem to support the founder of the Zee Network Subhash Chandra and his son Puneet Goenka in their existential battle with a foreign investment firm Invesco which wants to oust Puneet Goenka and the lead management team and form a new team to run the Zee Network, according to the IANS-CVoter Consumer Tracker.

The CVoter Tracker is India's only daily Opinion Tracking exercise mapping more than a hundred thousand randomly selected respondents in a calendar year. The tracker is run in 11 Indian languages and has interviewed more than a million respondents in person and CATI over the last ten years. The sample size was 3,000 all India as part of the main tracker.

Respondents were asked if they support the demand by Invesco to convene a Extraordinary General Meeting as soon as possible to enable them to vote to oust Goenka as the managing director. Close to 85 per cent of the respondents said they oppose the move by Invesco while close to 12 per cent of them supported the move. Just a day or so ago, the Bombay High Court has delivered a verdict staying the demand for an early EGM stating that while shareholders have a right to call for board meetings and EGMs, they have to do it within the law.

Over the years, Invesco has acquired about 17 per cent of the total equity of Zee while the founding family owns less than 4 per cent.

Early this year, Invesco had proposed to the founders that they merge the network with the entertainment wing of Reliance Industries Ltd. The proposal seems to have been rejected by Puneet Goenka and Reliance has made it very clear that it is not interested in any hostile takeover bid.

In the meanwhile, Zee and the Sony entertainment network have decide to merge both the networks which would be led by Puneet Goenka as the managing director for five years. Negotiations are at an advanced stage with both networks keen to speed up the process.

This support for the founding family of Zee was given by respondents during a survey conducted to assess their opinion on issues related to foreign direct investment. More than 80 per of the respondents said they considered foreign dominance of entertainment channels to be dangerous for the country.