The Government today sanctioned 26 foreign direct investment proposals valued at Rs 1,042.91 crore, including Neo Sports Broadcasting’s plan to invest Rs 258.53 crore.

Neo Sports will issue fresh equity or equity-linked instruments to introduce foreign funds on Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) recommendations.

Mr. Harish Thawani, chairman, Neo Sports Broadcast, said, “We will use the funds to create a programming and telecast rights corpus. We will also launch two niche channels in the last quarter of 2009, which will be in the non-sports genre.”

Preferential allotment of shares would be issued by the sports broadcasting company to its subsisting investors, which includes 3i, Oman Investment Fund (OIF) and Cisco, to lift up the said amount, which will be used to support growth plans of the company.

An offer from NSK Holdings to invest Rs 214.49 crore to make downstream investment got green signal, whereas Samvardhana Motherson Finance's plan to bring in Rs 208.53 crore to raise equity stake has also been approved by the administration.

John Deere Construction will invest around Rs 84 crore on the establishment of a joint venture to fulfill the manufacturing, marketing and distribution activities.

But, the administration rejected 3 proposals, including that of Bank of Nova Scotia of Canada, which was to undertake wholesale trading and hedging in precious metals.

The approvals were allowed after FIPB cleared the plans at its conference held on 20 March.

The government release said that the proposals relate to the ministries/departments such as commerce, economic affairs, heavy industries, industrial policy and promotion, information and broadcasting, home affairs, petroleum and natural gas, the Railways, civil aviation and telecommunication.