PVR, Inox Receive SEBI Approval For The Merger

Multiplex companies PVR and Inox Leisure have notified their approval from the BSE and the NSE for their proposed scheme of amalgamation or merger.

Both the companies shared this development via regulatory filings to the stock exchanges late on Tuesday evening.

"We would like to inform you that the Company has received an observation letter with “no adverse observations” dated 20th June, 2022 from BSE Limited and an observation letter with “no objection” dated 21st June, 2022 from National Stock Exchange of lndia Limited respectively in relation to the Scheme of Amalgamation,” the filing to the exchanges said.

In late March, the two film exhibition companies announced their merger plan to 'deliver unparalleled movie-going experience' to the audience.

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

Post the merger, PVR Promoters will have a 10.62 per cent stake while INOX Promoters will have a 16.66 per cent stake in the combined entity, it had said while announcing the proposed merger.

With PVR currently operating 871 screens across 181 properties in 73 cities and INOX operating 675 screens across 160 properties in 72 cities, the combined entity will become the largest film exhibition company in India operating 1546 screens across 341 properties across 109 cities.

“The partnership of these two brands will put consumers at the center of its vision and deliver an unparalleled movie-going experience to them. The film exhibition sector has been one of the worst impacted sectors on account of the pandemic and creating scale to achieve efficiencies is critical for the long term survival of the business and fight the onslaught of digital OTT platforms,” Ajay Bijli, Chairman and Managing Director of PVR said.

Ajay Bijli would be appointed as the Managing Director and Sanjeev Kumar would be appointed as the Executive Director. Pavan Kumar Jain would be appointed as the Non- Executive Chairman of the Board. Siddharth Jain would be appointed as Non-Executive Non-Independent Director in the combined entity.

"We believe, the PVR-Inox (INOL) merger, if it materialises in the near term, may trigger multiple synergies immediately, in the form of advertising revenues and convenience fee for the merged entity, which should directly improve overall profitability. Other synergies – reduced rental costs, corporate overheads etc. – may also ensue, in the mediumto-long term. Diametrically, we do not expect any major synergy on metrics such as spend per head and ticket prices as these are largely location-led – Distributor share is also expected to remain stable," added Karan Taurani, SVP – Research Analyst (Media, Internet & Consumer Discretionary), Elara Capital.

*Source: ANI