One lakh shareholders to hold shares of Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd.

The proposal for turning CSK into a separate owned company was mulled over in September last year; however the Supreme Court judgement last month played the bigger role in this decision.

For the first time in Indian Premier League (IPL) history, a cricket franchise will have owners, who are shareholders of a company.

The IPL franchise rights of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are now set to be transferred to its wholly owned subsidiary Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd. The India Cements Board approved a reorganisation plan for the newly formed subsidiary.

As reported by The Hindu, N Srinivasan, vice-chairman and managing director of the company, said on Wednesday, “This is the first step to slowly getting India Cements into a pure-play cement company. The ownership of Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd. will go to shareholders.”

The Hindu reports that there are 97,054 shareholders of India Cements. Ahead of the BCCI election on March 2, this is being seen as a smart move.

Srinivasan further added, “This will also be first instance of a sporting franchise in India held by public shareholders.”

The proposal for turning CSK into a separate owned company was mulled over in September last year; however the Supreme Court judgement last month played the bigger role in this decision. The bench also directed BCCI to hold its AGM within six weeks and said that the officials couldn’t have commercial interests in the IPL. This meant that Srinivasan, who controls India Cements had to give up the ownership of the franchise, so that he can contest BCCI elections.