Samir and Vineet Jain, the promoters of Bennett, Coleman & Co, better known as the Times Group, have reached a settlement to split the media conglomerate’s assets between them, top media industry sources said.
Mails sent to both brothers, however, elicited no response till the time of going to press.
Media reports of a likely split had gathered pace in the past few months. On Friday night, industrialist Harsh Goenka tweeted that the issue had been finally settled between the Jain brothers, who are 10 years apart in terms of age.
‘I am delighted that the Times of India group issue is finally settled. Samir Jain lords over the print business and Vineet gets the digital, TV and entertainment business.
All’s well that ends well!,’ Goenka tweeted.
Information from various industry sources indicate that Samir Jain, 69, will get control of the entire print division, including titles such as The Times of India, The Economic Times and language papers Navbharat Times and Vijay Karnataka, along with their online editions.
Vineet Jain, 59, will get the Times Network, the broadcast arm of the Times Goup; Entertainment Network India, which houses the radio business and other divisions such as Filmfare, Femina, their event IPs (Filmfare
Awards and Femina Miss India) along with their respective online editions. Vineet will also retain ET Money and the OTT platform MX player, it is reliably learnt.
Since the print business of The Times Group is bigger in terms of revenue versus other divisions, Vineet is likely to receive a cash payout of at least Rs 3,000 crore from his elder brother to balance out the partition, informed sources said.
The Jain brothers have also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to kickstart the separation process, persons in the know said, with law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas managing the legal technicalities.
‘This is a split of control as I see it,’ says R Sundar, who was earlier a director at The Times Group and has had an over three- decade-long association with the media conglomerate.
‘Samir has a good understanding of the print business, while Vineet understands broadcast, entertainment, radio, etc, well. This way, the two are ensuring that there is no overlap in terms of control and they can the run the businesses they understand well independently,’ he said.
Karan Taurani, senior vice-president, research at brokerage Elara Capital, seconded this view. ‘The split will bring in a lot of strategic focus in each business unit. In print, The Times of India has the highest recall. But in digital, there is a lot one can do to get to the level of say a New York Times or Financial Times that have a very steady subscription base and revenue,he said.
Taurani said that the Jain brothers could look at potential tie-ups in the future with international or national players in their respective areas.
GroupM’s advertising expenditure (adex) report for 2023 indicates that digital advertising will account for 56% of adex share and reach Rs 82,542 crore by the end of this year. It is now ahead of television and print advertising, which will account for 30% and 10% of adex share, respectively, this year