Sensex slips 600 points; Zee Entertainment tumbles 10%

Indian equity markets ticked lower on Monday amid weak global cues and the buzz of a lockdown extension beyond April 14.

Among headline indices, the S&P BSE Sensex dipped 660 points, or 2.08 per cent, to 30,500 levels and the Nifty50 index hovered around 8,920 levels, down 188 points. Bajaj Finance (down 7%), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 6%), and Titan (down 5%) were the top laggards while Bharti Airtel jumped 2 per cent. Zee Entertainment, on the other hand, dipped 10 per cent. 

Majority of the Nifty sectoral indices were in the red, led by Nifty Auto index, down 2 per cent. On the other hand, Nifty Pharma index was up 1.8 per cent.

Shares of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) fell 10 per cent to Rs 135 on the BSE on Monday after the media major invested Rs 522 crore in tech subsidiary Margo Networks, which offers streaming and advertising services under the ‘SugarBox’ brand name. ZEE owns 80 per cent in Margo.

Till 09:34 am, a combined 1.8 million equity shares had changed hands and there were pending sell orders for 330,000 shares on the BSE and NSE. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 1.7 per cent at 30,608 points.

“The Company will invest a sum of Rs 522 crore in SugarBox over a period of time and will provide operational support including through providing performance and corporate guarantees as appropriate and necessary and has authorized SugarBox to finalize the terms of 10 years contract with RailTel Corporation of India Limited,” ZEE said in exchange filing

ZEE had acquired 80 per cent equity stake in SugarBox in 2017. This investment was made to exploit strong synergies of the technology developed by SugarBox with the current business of the Company and with a potential to significantly augment the digital content consumption.

SugarBox operates in the content delivery network (CDN) and telecommunications industry and is engaged in providing hyperlocal content distribution services at key places of interest, including public transport, rural areas, public places, hospitality and residential areas by setting up storage, compute, wired and wireless connectivity infrastructure.

The additional investment will be used for operational and financial support. “Our investment in SugarBox gives a strong fillip to our overall digital business, sharpening its approach by many folds," the company said. SugarBox is expected to close FY20 with a turnover of Rs 47 lakh, it said.

 

GLOBAL CUES
 

And, in the end, let's have a look at global cues for today's trade. The US Futures and Asian stocks were largely lower in Monday's early deals. Japan's Nikkei and South Korea's Kospi slipped over 0.5 per cent each.

In commodities, oil jumped on Monday after major oil producers reached a deal for a record 10 million barrels per day output cut to support oil prices amid the pandemic. Consequently, Brent crude futures rose over 5 per cent to $33.19 a barrel early Monday.

(with inputs from Reuters)