Zee Telefilms Weighs Staff Warrants Up To 4 Per Cent
The Subhash Chandra-promoted Zee Telefilms (ZTL) is planning to offer warrants to its employees enabling them to pick up a stake up to four per cent at a later date. The company has a paid up share capital of Rs 18.60 crore.
The warrants will not only be offered to employees of ZTL but also to the employees of associate companies.
This includes Ambience Space Sellers (ASSL), a wholly owned subsidiary, and Siti Cable, the cable network arm in which Subhash Chandra has a substantial stake.
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Employees of Zee TV, El TV and Asia Trading Company Pvt Ltd (ATL), too, can avail of the offer. ATL owns the Zee and EL channels while ZTL supplies software to ATL. ASSL sells space for the Zee family of channels. ATL is a 50:50 joint venture between Subash Chandra and media baron Rupert Murdoch.
The company has convened an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on Wednesday to seek shareholder approval for the issue of warrants. ZTL is in fact ready to finance employees for picking up the warrants.
The pricing at which the warrants will be issued will be determined on the basis of guidelines laid down by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
If shareholders do not approve the scheme in the EGM, promoters are willing to divest upto 3 per cent of their stake to employees, through the warrant route sources said.
Currently, in ZTL Subhash Chandra and Associates hold about 50.52 per cent, 24.94 per cent is held by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), and 8.33 per cent is held by the public. Mutual Funds and banks hold about 10 per cent while the balance six per cent is held by NRIs and other companies.
In certain industries like media and software, there is a premium on retaining quality manpower. These in fact constitute the biggest resources for companies in these sectors. The move is being seen in industry circles as a measure to retain employees.
At the same EGM shareholder approval has also been sought for hiking the stake by FIIs to 30 per cent.
This EGM will be preceded by another one on the same day in which shareholder approval is being sought for merging ASSL with ZTL.