BENGALURU: A small fraction of the shareholders tendered their shares to the Reliance Industries led Independent Media Trust (IMT), in its bid to acquire over 90 per cent stake in the two companies – TV18 Broadcast and Network 18 Media & Investments.

Only 54 lakh TV18 Broadcast shares representing 0.32 per cent were tendered against the 44.65 crore shares representing 26 per cent that Reliance proposed to buy , and a meager 2.6 lakh Network 18 shares representing just 0.2 per cent of the shareholding were tendered. IMT spent just Rs 16.43 crore for the TV 18 tendered shares and Rs 1.06 crore for the Network 18 shares. IMT’s offer was Rs 30.18 per TV18 Broadcast equity share and Rs 41.04 per Network 18 equity share.

The new acquisitions brought IMT/Reliance group’s stake in TV18 Broadcast to 60.29 per cent and to 78.07 per cent in Network 18.

Reliance may have to sell off some Network 18 shares to meet the minimum shareholding norms of 25 per cent. At present, the public shareholding in the company stands at 20.27 per cent.