BalrajQuint Digital Media Limited, a digital media company, entered into a conclusive term sheet agreement with the Adani Group. The ports-to-energy conglomerate will acquire a minority stake in Quintillion Business Media Pvt Ltd as part of the term sheet.
Quint Digital confirmed in a stock exchange filing that the proposed agreement with the Adani Group is only for QBM, a digital business news platform, and has nothing to do with other digital media/media tech properties owned by Quint Digital such as The Quint, the new minute, Quintype Technologies, and Youthkiawaaz.
The deal is subject to standard due diligence and the execution of definitive agreements, and as of now, Quint Digital has entered a memorandum of understanding with Adani Properties for the scheduled sale of a minority shareholding in QBM held by Quintillion Media (material subsidiary).
Sanjay Pugalia, CEO, Adani Media Ventures said in a statement, “Adani Media Ventures intends to lead the path for new age media across different platforms. The adoption of technology and the increased ability of our nation to consume information has dramatically transformed the way media is expected to disseminate authentic information. This is exactly what Adani Media Ventures aims to do.” In September of last year, Pugalia resigned as president of Quint Digital Media to join Adani Media Ventures as chief executive and editor-in-chief to oversee the Group’s media-related operations.
For starters, QBM is an Indian business and financial media outlet that also provides a business news digital platform. Through its platform Bloomberg | Quint, QBM’s major content focuses on the Indian economy, corporate law & governance, international finance, and business news, among other things. Bloomberg Television Production Services India Pvt. Ltd. has a content agreement in place.
Quint said in a separate filing to the stock exchanges that Bloomberg Media and Quintillion Media will restructure its agreement in India, dissolving their equity joint venture in favor of a new content license partnership. Quintillion Media and Bloomberg Media launched a 74:26 joint venture in April 2016 with the objective of launching a business news channel and web portal under the name BloombergQuint. This is Bloomberg’s first investment in a partnership anywhere.
Anil Uniyal, CEO of Quintillion Media said, “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 fulfill 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.”