Blackstone Makes India Investment

NEW YORK/MUMBAI, January 30: U.S. private equity firm
Blackstone has made a $275 million investment in India’s Ushodaya Enterprises
(UEL), parent company of the South Indian broadcasting group Eenadu TV.

The investment—India’s largest ever private-equity
deal—is expected to give Blackstone a 26-percent in UEL, local reports
indicate. The Hyderabad-based media company is planning to raise a total of
$465 million, with $275 million from Blackstone and $190 million of bank
financing. The funds will be used to further expand UEL’s activities. It owns
the fourth largest private television broadcasting network in the country,
Eenadu TV (ETV), with 11 regional offerings, as well as the country’s third
largest newspaper. The parent company of UEL, Ramoji Group, owns Ramoji Film
City, which is Asia's largest studio.

No further terms of the deal were disclosed. The transaction
is subject to regulatory approval by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board and
the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Akhil Gupta, the chairman and managing director of
Blackstone Advisors India Private Limited, stated, "We believe that the
Indian media sector will be a key beneficiary of a secular trend in growth in
personal consumption that is driving India's economic expansion, which in turn
will spur advertising growth. Importantly, we believe that UEL is an ideal
platform for Blackstone to play this highly attractive sector in India. Over
the last three decades, [UEL Chairman Ramaji] Rao has created a unique media
company with a dominant newspaper franchise built on editorial integrity and a
TV franchise built through deep cultural understanding of the markets and truly
regional content.”