The flagship firm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries Limited, said on Wednesday that it expects to close the merger of its media assets with the operations of Walt Disney Company in India by the end of the third quarter of the current fiscal year. It disclosed this with the company’s quarterly earnings statement in the regulatory filing.

All the clearances received by Competition Commission of India for the deal regarding merger between Viacom18 and Star India have been cleared and already approved by National Company Law Tribunal. Reliance has said it is seeking further necessary approvals to finalize the deal. The NCLT last week approved a merger of RIL-controlled media assets, comprising TV18 Broadcast and E18, into Network18 Media & Investments with effect from October 3.

Prior to that, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting granted permission to transfer licenses relating to Non-News & Current Affairs television channels from Viacom18 Media to Star India.

Viacom18 is the holding vehicle of Reliance’s media and entertainment, which takes Bodhi Tree Systems as a partner. Both parties are finalizing the merger as per the orders of CCI. NCLT has   approved the scheme on August 30 that involves a structured scheme with transferring media operations of Viacom18 and Jio Cinema into the subsidiary of Viacom18, namely Digital18, followed by demerger and the transferring the V18 undertaking to Star India.

This, after completion, will be the biggest media house in India valued over ₹70,000 crore, and Reliance and its subsidiaries will have a 63.16% stake in the new entity while Disney will have a 36.84% stake in it. This joint venture will see Reliance invest around ₹11,500 crore and as per this joint venture, the investment will place Reliance well above Sony and Netflix. The joint venture will be headed by Nita Ambani, and Uday Shankar will be the vice-chairman.