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Farhan Akhtar’s Excel Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. has sold a minority stake to Universal Music Group NV’s India unit, in a deal that pegs the valuation of the production company more than that of Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions.<\/p>\n The Hilversum, Netherlands-based company has agreed to invest \u20b9<\/span>7,200 crore for a 30% stake, valuing the Mumbai-based production house at \u20b9<\/span>2,400 crore, according to a joint statement on Monday (5 January 2026). The deal will form a \u201cstrategic partnership\u201d to accelerate Excel\u2019s growth as well as further boost Universal Music\u2019s position in the \u201cimportant\u201d India market, it said.<\/p>\n Founded by childhood friends and moviemakers Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar in 1999, Excel Entertainment produced its first film \u2018Dil Chahta Hai\u2019 in 2001. The movie marked Akhtar’s directorial debut. Since then, the duo has produced box-office hits \u2018Don\u2019 to \u2018Gully Boy\u2019 and \u2018Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara\u2019. The company has ventured successfully into the OTT space, producing shows like \u2018Mirzapur\u2019, \u2018Made in Heaven\u2019 and \u2018Dabba Cartel\u2019.<\/p>\n The deal is the second in recent years where an Indian production house has received funding from external investors, as Bollywood largely struggles with delivering big-name blockbusters and regional cinema thrives.<\/p>\n Last year, vaccine billionaire Adar Poonawalla\u2019s Serene Productions bought 50% stake in Johar\u2019s Dharma Productions and Dharmatic Entertainment, valuing the Indian studio at \u20b9<\/span>2,400 crore.<\/p>\n The Excel deal will give Universal Music global distribution rights for all future soundtracks created for Excel Entertainment\u2019s projects. Excel Entertainment\u2019s music label, which will be launched as a part of the agreement, will also be globally distributed by Universal Music.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.hindustantimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Farhan Akhtar’s Excel Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. has sold a minority stake to Universal Music Group NV’s India unit, in a deal that pegs the valuation of the production company more than that of Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. Founded by childhood friends and moviemakers Ritesh Sidhwani (left) and Farhan Akhtar in 1999, Excel Entertainment produced its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2222898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[391455,429950,429865,419552,429866,348281],"class_list":["post-2222897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dharma-productions","tag-dharmatic-entertainment","tag-excel-entertainment","tag-farhan-akhtar","tag-ritesh-sidhwani","tag-universal-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Farhan-Akhtars-Excel-Entertainment-sells-30-stake-to-Universal-Music.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2222897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2222899,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2222897\/revisions\/2222899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2222898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2222897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2222897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2222897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}