Jagran Prakashan acquires NaiDunia
Jagran Prakashan has finally announced the acquisition of NaiDunia Media, by acquiring the publishing house’s parent company Suvi Info Management, Indore. Jagran had announced this to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
05 Apr 2012 | 5552 Views | By Rahul Kumar
In a press note, Mahendra Mohan Gupta, chairman and managing director, Jagran Prakashan, said, “This was a logical market expansion that enables us to strengthen our presence in central India. NaiDunia is a newspaper with a very strong team and has demonstrated editorial excellence over the last several decades. With the acquisition of Mid Day in 2010 and this acquisition, we are well on our way towards implementing our strategy of inorganic growth through mergers and acquisitions. On the one hand, this allows us to bring significant scale with much lesser investment and on the other hand, it saves long gestation period, which is typical to the print industry. The acquisition will enable us to leverage our existing network and allow significant operating synergies.”
Ernst & Young was the exclusive advisor in the transaction.
Launched in 1947, NaiDunia has multiple editions published from Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Raipur and Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh. NaiDunia’s current circulation base is approximately five lakh copies per day. Placed amongst the top 10 Hindi newspapers in India, it has been one of the fastest growing newspapers in the market with a growth in readership over the last five years.
NaiDunia had a Delhi edition as well, which was shut down as part of this takeover. NaiDunia’s acquisition gives scale to Jagran Prakashan in a market, where its flagship daily Dainik Jagran was still struggling for a leadership position. NaiDunia added to the Jagran stable and fills in a significant gap for the company’s overall presence in India.