Zee MD hosted conference call on Jan 25 night

Zee MD and CEO Puneet Goenka hosted a conference call on January 25, post a steep 27 per cent decline in the share price.

Zee management confirmed that this was partly driven by invocation of pledges on promoter-owned shares by certain Group lenders.

Promoter, Essel Group owned 41.6 per cent of ZEEL (Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited) as of December 18, and 59.4 per cent (237 million shares) of their stock was pledged as per last reported data (January 18).

It is understood that around 6.5 million pledged shares were sold on Friday, thus reducing Essel Group's stake by 0.7 pps to 40.9 per cent.

The share price decline has led to breach of covenants with lenders, creating risk of further pledge invocations.

Separately, in an open letter, ZEEL Chairman Subhash Chandra, while admitting mistakes (excessive infra bids, purchase of Videocon by Dish TV), blamed certain "negative forces" for the share price collapse, but vowed to repay all group lenders, urging them not to panic.

--IANS

vsc/ksk/vm