Walt Disney has reportedly started preliminary talks with potential buyers, including Gautam Adani and Sun TV’s Kalanidhi Maran, for sale of its India streaming and television businesses. The US entertainment giant is also assessing the interest of private equity funds to explore different options which could involve selling part of the India operations or a combination of its assets including sports rights and regional streaming service Disney+ Hotstar. Talks for sale of assets had earlier been held with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.
Disney has been weighing strategic options — outright sale or setting up a joint venture — for its business in India after it lost its IPL streaming rights to Viacom18 Media. Viacom is a joint venture of Reliance Industries, Paramount Global and Uday Shankar’s investment firm, Bodhi Tree Systems.
Of course, the talks are at such a preliminary stage that a deal would not happen anytime soon.