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Disney Considers Selling Assets to Asia’s Richest Billionaire

Per the latest reports, Disney is considering selling its India streaming and television business to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the Walt Disney Company selling off various assets in order to maintain a profitable business and (most likely) set shareholder’s minds at ease. Since the beginning of the year, in fact, since Disney CEO Bob Iger’s return, the company has been running a major cost-cutting endeavor, trying to reduce costs by $5.5 billion.

Disney CEO Bob Iger
Credit: Thomas Hawk, Flickr

Disney Struggles in India

If there’s one market the Walt Disney Company has been struggling to crack, it’s India. While the company certainly has a notable presence in India, it has not performed up to par. In July, Disney’s Indian business lost the streaming rights to the Indian Premier League cricket tournament (IPL) to Viacom18 Media Pvt., a tie-up between Paramount Global and Reliance.

Given how big cricket is in India, this was a huge loss for the Mouse House. In order to combat this, however, Disney will be giving free streaming of the Asia Cup to customers.

In addition, Disney has also lost subscribers to the tune of millions. Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal also argued about the possibility of Disney+ Hotstar losing eight to ten million subscribers in India.

Indian Tycoon Ambani’s Reliance Industries Could Save Disney

Per reports from Bloomberg and CNBC,

Walt Disney Co. has held preliminary talks with potential buyers for its India streaming and television business including billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd.

The report explained that Disney has been considering a variety of options in their sale, from “a deal for the entire Disney Star business to a piecemeal transaction that may include some combination of its assets, including sports rights and regional streaming service Disney+ Hotstar.”

If this deal comes to pass, it will end up making the Walt Disney Company a lot of money and might just be a financially sound decision, albeit at a notable cost.

"Partners" statue in front of Cinderella Castle, Magic Kingdom Park, Walt Disney World Resort
“Partners” statue in front of Cinderella Castle, Magic Kingdom Park, Walt Disney World Resort / Credit: Disney

Now that Disney has lost its IPL streaming rights and could lose up to ten million subscribers, it leaves them little choice in how they want to run their business. It’s no secret that Mukesh Ambani knows how to run a business, considering the massive success he’s seen with Reliance Industries, Ltd.

Nothing is yet set in stone, and it could well turn out that Disney does not sell to Reliance after all; however, at the moment, it does seem like Asia’s richest billionaire, who is also the world’s 13th richest man, will be the man of the hour when it comes to buying out some of Disney’s Indian assets.

Priyanka Kumar

Priyanka is a writer, artist, avid reader, and travel enthusiast based in Chicago. In her free time, she is probably walking by the lake, catching up on the latest releases on TV, or spending inordinate amounts of time rewatching Moana, Encanto, and her Disney Channel life-long favorites Zack and Cody wreak havoc on the Tipton.

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