Ending all speculations about who’s the new co-owner of Karan Johar led Dharma Productions, pharmaceutical tycoon Adar Poonawala led Serene Productions has now acquired 50% stakes of Dharma Productions and Dharmatic Entertainment (collectively Dharma) after entering into a binding agreement to invest ₹1000 crores in the production banner.
After this massive investment, Dharma is now valued at ₹2000 crores and this investment aims at expanding large scale, multilingual productions, building franchises and elevating traditional entertainment formats.
As per the official announcement, Karan Johar will retain the remaining 50% ownership and will continue as the creative chairman of the firm spearheading the company’s creative vision. Also, Apoorv Mehta will remain the Chief Executive Officer of Dharma and will steer the strategic direction and oversee the overall excellence of the organisation.
Combining Dharma’s storytelling prowess with Adar Poonawala’s strategic and business acumen and resources, together they aim to further transform content creation, distribution and audience engagement by integrating advance technologies and pioneering production methods.
Their focus is on the tech savvy generation of today and also take the Indian content to a wider global audience. For this they plan to embrace new platforms and formats and do much more.
Earlier there was buzz in the media that Dharma is in talks for investment and names of various firms came up in the process and these include RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group’s Saregama, Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Studios, and the Adani Group.
This investments comes as major boost for Dharma which has given recent hits like ‘Rockh Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’ and ‘Kill’. Though its latest outing ‘Jigra’ couldn’t garner much praise. The banner also has deals with global streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime Video.
As for Adar Poonawala, he is a well known name in the Indian business world and is the owner of Serum Institute of India, one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, by volume. They are major providers of affordable vaccines to developing countries and their Covishield Vaccine for Corona gained the firm global recognition.