Reliance Industries, the conglomerate with highest market capitalisation in the country, is planning to buy a stake in Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, according to a report.
ALSO READ: How Bollywood's Big Daddy Karan Johar built his empire
Karan Johar has been trying to monetise his stake for a while but the plan got shelved due to disagreement over valuation, reported The Economic Times.
Karan Johar owns 90.7 per cent stake in the company while his mother, Hiroo Johar, has 9.24 per cent. The percentage of stake under negotiation has not been revealed.
The revelation about the deal comes as Bollywood studios have been facing challenges amid emergence of OTT platforms and plunge in the number of theatre-goers.
Johar had earlier held talks with Saregama for a stake sale but last week the Sanjiv Goenka-led company stated in a regulatory filing that there were no significant updates in the discussions.
The Mukesh Ambani-owned company already has Jio Studios and Viacom18 Studios in its content portfolio besides a minority stake in Balaji Telefilms.
Reliance Industries had earlier joined forces with Walt Disney to merge their JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar to crush the market reign of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. If the conglomerate merges the content from both platforms, the new entity could become the largest OTT service in the country offering Hollywood and desi entertainment content besides rights to major sports events like IPL.
