News Corp (NWSA, Financial) has announced its plans to acquire the owner of the VCCircle Network, Mosaic Media Ventures Pvt. Ltd. Though the transaction value of the deal has not been disclosed, it seems that News Corp is going out of its way to secure a place in the media market of India. The past few years has seen News Corp making digital investments in India. Just last year, the company acquired 25% stake in PropTiger.com, thus venturing in the real-estate division. The U.S. giant put around $30 million to buy the property company. In December, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp went on to acquire BigDecisions.com, a platform provided to make smarter financial decisions. Now, the company's decision to acquire VCCircle Network is an added acquisition feature in its hat. This acquisition should come as a surprise to many since we hardly get a chance to see "pure-play" media companies being acquired in the country. Now, News Corp can enter into venture capital niche in India- a niche that is highly influential and provides for tremendous opportunities.
Management talks
Robert Thomson, the CEO of News Corporation, said that this investment shows that the company has tremendous faith in the future of India. The acquisition will give the company an opportunity to work with emerging talents in India, he said. Indian markets will now become an important part of their portfolio, which is itself increasingly digital and global, Robert said. Founder and CEO of VCCircle P.V. Sahad said that the acquisition will help VCCircle in accelerating their existing aggressive growth plans. However, he did not reveal and elaborate on the goals and growth plans. Sahad said that for the last decade the company has taken efforts in building franchises with proprietary data, content, and networking capabilities in the division of digital businesses.
Retrospection
Looking back at the history of News Corp, it seems that the company is constantly expanding its base, given that businesses are held in U.S., U.K. and Australia. The media company provides services like digital real estate services, digital education, information services, etc. The U.S. media giant mainly focuses on creating and distributing value-based content to its users. News Corp reported $2.28 billion revenue for Fiscal 2015 Second Quarter. As compared to revenues of $8.89 billion last year, the tech giant made $8.57 billion in the 2014 fiscal full year. The adjusted EPS was 46 cents and the reported total segment EBITDA was $770 million.
VCCircle Network was founded in 2005 and comprises businesses across online business news, events, training for venture capital and private equity fund managers and other professionals. The company provides information on business news pertaining to IPOs, directories of PE/VC firms, mergers and acquisition transactions, financials, etc. The company has its headquarters in Noida and houses around a hundred employees. The tech and start-up-focused media company runs sites like VCCircle.com and Techcircle.in, VCCEdge, VCCircle Training along with other platforms. The CEO P.V. Sahad will now report to Raju Narisetti, the Senior Vice President, Strategy of News Corp.
Our take
It seems that Indian media scene will soon heat up with the kind of acquisitions that has taken place. Many foreign media biggies have made their presence known in India. The HuffPost India was launched in December 2014 whereas Mashable India was launched last month. Online media companies like ScoopWhoop, The NewsMinute etc., also planted their roots in the country. The large population in India, out of which 240 million are avid internet users, gives an added advantage to these MNC's. Indian companies like Times Of India adopt traditional ways of media, hence online media division space can be harvested by international media companies.
