Reliance Industries Ltd., managed by Asia’s richest tycoon Mukesh Ambani, is nearing a money and inventory deal to purchase Walt Disney Co.’s India operations, in response to folks aware of the matter.

The U.S. leisure large might promote a controlling stake within the Disney Star enterprise, which it values at round $10 billion, versus piecemeal transactions weighed earlier, the folks stated, asking to not be named as a result of the discussions are non-public. Reliance views the belongings at between $7 billion and $8 billion, among the folks stated.

The acquisition may very well be introduced as early as subsequent month, with a few of Reliance’s media models merged into Disney Star, the folks stated with out offering additional particulars.

Under the proposal, Disney will seemingly proceed to carry on to a minority stake within the Indian firm after any money and inventory swap transaction is accomplished, the folks stated. No last choice has been made on the deal or the valuation, and Disney may nonetheless determine to maintain the belongings for a bit longer, they added.

Reliance “evaluates various opportunities on an ongoing basis” and can make crucial disclosures as required, a spokesperson for the corporate stated in an emailed reply. A consultant for Disney in India didn’t reply to a request for remark.

The deal talks are illustrative of Ambani’s disruption of India’s leisure trade after he scooped up the streaming rights to the Indian Premier League for $2.7 billion in 2022. The billionaire’s JioCinema platform then selected to broadcast the massively standard home cricket event free of charge earlier this 12 months.

Reliance then scored one other win by bagging a multi-year pact to broadcast Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s HBO exhibits in India, content material that was beforehand with Disney.

Even as Disney Star struggled with sliding subscriber numbers, the media group hasn’t ceded the market and had been making investments. It has been weighing different choices for the enterprise, together with an outright sale or organising a three way partnership, Bloomberg News reported in July.

Still, Disney’s India streaming platform managed to attract in a document 43 million viewers on Sunday for the boys’s Cricket World Cup 2023 match between India and New Zealand, the corporate stated in a press release. That was increased than the 35 million viewers the extremely anticipated India-Pakistan grudge match drew earlier this month.