Disney has reportedly reached a nonbinding agreement with Reliance Industries to sell 51% of Disney Hotstar in India. This would give Reliance a controlling interest in the streaming service, with Disney owning 49% and Reliance owning 51%. The merger would create the largest “media and entertainment business” in India.

Disney acquired Star (Hotstar) when they purchased assets from Fox in 2019. Star was the vehicle Disney used for Disney+ in India, now calling it Disney+ Hotstar.

According to The Economic Times of India, those who know the deal say that the agreement will be finalized by February. While totals were not announced, the cash and stock merger will likely be in the range of $7- $10 million. 

What was very interesting was that ex-Disney executive Kevin Mayer was the one who went to meet with Reliance representative Manoj Modi. Mayer left the Walt Disney Company in 2020 after it was announced that Bob Chapek would be stepping in as the new Disney CEO. Mayer was key to building Disney+. He left and joined forces with another former Disney executive, Tom Staggs, to create Candle Media. 

Just a few months ago, Bob Iger brought them back to Disney as consultants for the Walt Disney Company. 

Disney is likely going through with a merger instead of selling the service to keep its foothold in India and keep the Disney+ subscriber numbers up. It would look very bad for them to suddenly lose almost 40 million subscribers if they sold it outright. However, Disney usually excludes HotStar subscribers from their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) numbers because they average only .70 while all their other markets average about $6.7. 

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