Indian billionaire Adani to buy majority stake in NDTV

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani's conglomerate will buy a majority stake in New Delhi Television (NDTV), marking its most high-profile media bet and setting the stage for a face-off in the sector with fellow tycoon Mukesh Ambani.

A unit of the Adani Group will buy a 29.18% stake and launch an open offer for another 26% of NDTV, Adani Group said in a statement on Tuesday.

One of nation's most popular news organisations, NDTV operates three national channels - NDTV 24x7 in English, NDTV India in Hindi and a business news channel.

It is regarded as one of the few media groups which often takes a critical view of the ruling administration's policies.

Adani is set to make an open offer for the stake at 294 rupees per share, the statement said, representing a 20.5% discount to Tuesday's close of 369.75 rupees. The open offer would be worth 4.93 billion Indian rupees ($62 million).

The financial details of the remaining stake purchase were not immediately clear.

In March, Adani made its first bet in the media sector by taking a minority stake in local digital business news platform Quintillion.

"NDTV is the most suitable broadcast and digital platform to deliver on our vision," Adani Group executive Sanjay Pugalia said in the statement.

Adani rival Ambani, chairman of oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries, owns Network18 which operates business channels such as CNBC TV18.

Adani Group has several publicly listed companies in sectors including airports and ports, power generation and transmission, coal and gas trading.

Fitch Group's debt research unit CreditSights on Tuesday published a report which said Adani Group is "deeply overleveraged" and that its many investments in capital-intensive businesses could pose long-term risks to investors.