Jagran Prakashan buys majority stake in Mid-Day

Jagran Prakashan, one of the world's largest print media companies which publishes India's most read newspaper Dainik Jagran, is buying a majority stake in Mumbai-headquartered tabloid Mid-Day.

It was officially announced yesterday that the print business of Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd (MML) has been merged and transferred to Jagran Prakashan Ltd (JPL) with effect from April 1, 2010.

Jagran's Board of Directors have approved the Scheme of Arrangement under Sections 391 to 394 of the Companies Act 1956 and today informed the Bombay Stock Exchange on this regard.

The print business, run by MML through its wholly owned subsidiary Mid-Day Infomedia Ltd (MIL), comprises of the publications namely Mid-Day (with editions in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi), Sunday Mid-Day, Gujarati Mid-day and The Inquilab, the largest read Urdu newspaper in the country and all publication related Internet properties.

Ernst and Young (E&Y) has done the valuation of the two businesses and the swap ratio works out to be 7:2.

However, the radio business of Mid-Day Multimedia, operated through its subsidiary Radio Mid-Day, will continue to remain with the present shareholders of Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd.