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Nine Network India in Balaji merger

Nine Networks Entertainment India, partly owned by Australia's richest man Kerry Packer, is merging with television content provider Balaji Telefilms, Indian financial dailies said on Wednesday.

"A swap ratio of 65 shares of Balaji for every 200 shares of Nine Network Entertainment has been fixed," a business newspaper said.

Nine Networks is a unit of a newly formed television software joint venture between Kerry Packer's Channel Nine and India's Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd, a telecommunications and software firm.

Balaji Telefilms, one of Nine Network's content providers, is listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Balaji's post-merger equity capital will rise to Rs 129 million from Rs 103 million. Nine Broadcasting India will hold 20 per cent of the expanded base, another financial daily said.

"With this merger various new concepts and the technical expertise possessed by Channel Nine would be brought in India through Balaji Telefims," the paper quoted Balaji's chairman Jeetendra Kapoor as saying.

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