CEO issue pulls Sony-Zee deal to the brink

Sony Group Corp. is set to pull the plug on the proposed $10-billion merger of its India unit with Zee Entertainment Enterprises after more than two years of negotiations.

- Gaurav Laghate

MUMBAI: The deal unravelled as the media giants failed to agree on who would lead the combined entity, with the Japanese conglomerate disinclined to have Zee's at the helm, said two people with direct knowledge of the developments.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, the holding company of Culver Max Entertainment (earlier Sony Pictures Networks India), will send a deal termination notice to ZEE early next week, one of them said. The Sony Corp. board is expected to finalize the decision shortly.

On November 10, Mint was the first to report that the talks had stalled after Sony's demand that its executive lead the merged entity instead of Goenka, and that failure to reach an agreement by December 21 could derail the merger. The two companies extended the deadline by a month but failed to iron out their differences.