Sony scraps merger with India’s Zee
Al Jazeera
The collapse blows the chance for both firms to better compete with international streaming rivals.
Sony has announced that it is pulling out of a $10bn merger of its Indian operations with local rival Zee Entertainment.
Sony’s confirmation on Monday that the deal, agreed three years ago, is a deathblow to the hopes of both firms of competing with streaming rivals such as Disney, Amazon and Netflix in India’s booming entertainment market of 1.4 billion people.
The Japanese firm said in a statement that it had “issued a notice terminating the definitive [merger] agreements” by the two companies and that “closing conditions… were not satisfied”.
When agreed in 2021, the union was predicted by Zee chief executive Punit Goenka to be set to create an outfit worth close to $10bn, with annual revenues approaching $2bn.
However, closing the deal has been problematic, most recently because Sony reportedly did not want Goenka – who is facing a regulatory probe – to run the combined entity.
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