Music Label Saregama India Limited has acquired a majority stake in Pocket Aces Pictures Private Limited in an all-cash deal.

Saregama will acquire 51.8% shares for around ₹174 crore with plans to further acquire another 41% stake in the next 15 months at pre-agreed multiples.

Khaitan & Co acted for Saregama in this acquisition deal. The Firm was involved in the following: (i) acting as legal counsel to the Client for the overall transaction (including negotiating, drafting and reviewing the term sheet and definitive agreements); (ii) undertaking legal due diligence on the target; (iii) assisting with execution of the transaction documents.

The transaction team was led by Ashraya Rao (Partner), Unnita Bhattacharya (Principal Associate), Utsav Mitra (Associate), and Priyal Reddy (Associate) with assistance from Bhavya Bhankharia (Principal Associate) and Alankrita Singh (Associate). Sudhir Bassi (Executive Director) assisted on Securities Law aspects.

Diligence team comprised the following: 

Corporate: Akhil Wilson Thomas (Associate), Alankrita Singh (Associate)

Intellectual Property: Smriti Yadav (Partner), Reshma Vaidye Gupta (Principal Associate), Shubham Shende (Associate)

Employment Law aspects: Anshul Prakash (Partner), Abhishek Choudhury (Principal Associate) and Shreya Sukhtankar (Associate)

Luthra and Luthra Law Offices India represented Pocket Aces Pictures and its founders, Aditi Shrivastava, Ashwin Suresh and Anirudh Pandita in this deal.

The transaction team of Nishant Singh (Partner), Saksham Madan (Managing Associate), Varshini Ramesh (Associate), and Maitri Meghani (Associate).

The core transaction team was ably assisted by Chhavi Jhanji (Manging Associate), and Manushi Shah (Associate).

Saregama, the legacy music label, owns the largest music archives in India, and is one of the biggest music labels in the world. It owns nearly 50% of all  the music ever recorded in the India.

Pocket Aces Pictures Private Limited, is the fastest-growing digital entertainment company that owns direct relationship with 95M+ younger digital-first customers across Instagram, YouTube etc. It has an IP catalogue of over 3,000 content pieces ranging from web series and sketches to music videos and reels on its channels FilterCopy, Nutshell and Gobble.

If you would like your Deals, Columns, Press Releases to be published on Bar & Bench, please fill in the form available here.