Adani Group Acquires Minority Stake in Quintillion Business Media

Billionaire Gautam Adani, has acquired a minority stake in Quintillion Media, which owns The Quint digital media source. This is The Quint’s first big stakeholder to come from outside the family, owned by journalist and editor Raghav Bahl and his wife Ritu Kapur.

The planned transaction with the Adani Group is just for QBM, a digital business news platform, and has nothing to do with Quint Digital’s other digital media/media tech holdings, which include The Quint, Quintype Technologies, thenewsminute, and Youthkiawaaz, according to the statement.

Commenting on the acquisition, Sanjay Pugalia, CEO, Adani Media Ventures Limited said, “Adani Media Ventures intends to lead the path for new age media across different platforms…I have had the privilege of working with QBM’s talented, credible and diverse team. This relationship between AMV and QBM marks a strong beginning of Adani Group’s foray into Indian media.”

“The proposed transaction with the Adani Group is only for QBM which is a digital business news platform and not in relation to other digital media/ media tech properties owned by Quint Digital viz. The Quint, Quintype Technologies, thenewsminute and Youthkiawaaz,” said Quint Digital in a stock exchange filing without quantifying the stake Adani was taking.

QBM is an Indian business and financial news organization that also provides a business news internet platform. Through its platform Bloomberg | Quint, QBM’s major content focuses on the Indian economy, international finance, corporate law and governance, and business news, among other things. Bloomberg Television Production Services India Private Limited has a content agreement in place.

Currently, the stock of Quint Digital Media is classified in the X category on the BSE. X group consists of all those stocks which are only listed on BSE. “We are delighted to welcome the Adani Group as an investor in QBM. Given the proven execution record of the Adani group, their support to fulfil the ambitions of QBM will lay the foundation for accelerating the growth of the business and scale of QBM’s high quality content for the Indian audiences” stated Anil Uniyal, CEO, QBM.

For the past few months, the port-to-energy conglomerate led by India’s second richest man has been considering an entry into the media arena. It engaged veteran journalist Sanjay Pugalia to oversee its media company, Adani Media Ventures, in September of last year. Pugalia formerly served as president of Quint Digital Media, QBM’s parent business.

Adani Group has a market value of more over USD 150 billion and is made up of seven publicly traded firms that operate airports and ports, power generation and transmission, coal, and a city gas distribution network.

However, Adani is hardly the first industrialist to invest privately in a media company. Indeed, industrialists have a long history of owning and personally controlling some of India’s oldest journalistic institutions.

The Times Group is mainly owned by the Sahu Jain family, a long-standing industrialist family. Similarly, Shobhana Bhartia has owned and run Hindustan Times since her appointment as Chief Executive in 1986, when she was only 29 years old. Bhartia is the granddaughter of GD Birla, the renowned businessman, and his son KK Birla, the chairman of the Hindustan Times.

Aroon Purie, a journalist-turned-entrepreneur, owns a majority stake in the India Today Group, which includes both India Today and Aaj Tak. However, Kumar Mangalam Birla of the Aditya Birla Group also owns around a quarter of the corporation. Mukesh Ambani’s family is Network-18’s largest private stakeholder, albeit there is little proof that the Ambanis are involved in day-to-day operations.