Zee is back in murky waters after the shares of the media company crashed by more than 10 per cent on Wednesday. This decline follows reports that the market watchdog, SEBI, has uncovered a massive irregularity amounting to $241 million in the company's accounts.
This development comes after the cancellation of the mega-merger deal between Zee and Sony. SEBI has revealed that around Rs 2,000 crore (or $241 million) might have been diverted from the company, a figure nearly ten times greater than SEBI investigators' initial projection, as per a report by Bloomberg.
At 10:45 am, the shares of Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd. were trading at Rs 171 price level, down by more than 10 per cent or 21 points on NSE.
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The regulatory body has called upon Subhash Chandra and his son Punit Goenka, founders of Zee, along with specific board members of the troubled media company, to provide an explanation.
Even after calling off the merger, Zee continues to be on a difficult path with its shares making headlines almost every week. A few days back, there were reports that the mega-deal might have another chance for revival.
Later Zee Entertainment issued a clarification, refuting reports of resuming discussions with the Sony group to revive their $10 billion merger deal, which was terminated last month.
In a regulatory filing, Zee Entertainment stated that the company was not engaged in any negotiations regarding the Sony merger deal and added that the reports indicating a revival of talks were incorrect.
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