PVR shareholders to mull Inox merger on Oct 11, creditors' meet same day

Multiplex operator PVR has called a meeting of its shareholders and creditors on October 11 to seek their approval for the scheme of merger with Inox Leisure.

This comes after the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) directed PVR to call a meeting.

"We wish to inform you that pursuant to the order pronounced on August 22, 2022 and received on September 5, 2022, meetings of equity shareholders will be held through video conferencing or other audio visual means on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at 11:30 AM," PVR said on Friday.

A meeting of secured creditors of the company will also be held, albeit physically at PVR's registered office in Mumbai on the same day at 3 PM, it said.

Both PVR and Inox Leisure had said in June that they had received clearances for the merger from NSE and BSE.

The announcement by PVR comes within days of another merger, that of Sony and Zee, making headway, despite initial observations by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) recently.

On Wednesday, the Mumbai bench of NCLT had directed Zee Entertainment Enterprises to call a shareholders meeting on October 14 regarding the merger with Culver Max Entertainment (formerly Sony Pictures Network).

The order, passed on August 24, but uploaded to the bourses on Wednesday, came close on the CCI's observation that the $10-billion merger could hurt competition and that greater scrutiny of the deal was needed.

Zee had written to the CCI after its initial observations became public, citing latest TV viewership data showing that the merged entity would have lower market share and wouldn't lead to concentration of power.

Zee had received approval from the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), paving the way for the merger process to move to the next stage.

Last December, the companies had signed definitive agreements to merge Zee into Sony and combine their linear TV networks, digital assets, production operations and programme libraries.

The transaction would create the second-largest entertainment network, after Disney-Star in India, analysts had said back then.

PVR and Inox Leisure, on the other hand, had in March announced their merger to create the largest multiplex chain in the country with a network of more than 1,500 screens to unlock the opportunities in tier III, IV and V cities, besides in the developed markets.

The combined entity will be named PVR INOX Ltd with the branding of existing screens to continue as PVR and INOX.

New cinemas opened post the merger will be branded as PVR INOX, the companies had said