Financial Times To Part Ways With India’s Business Standard; Deal With Network18?

‘Tis the season for breaking and making media partnerships in India — Mint reports that Financial Times is ending its 15 year old content partnership with Indian financial daily Business Standard, while at the same time, inking a content partnership with Network18 Media and Investments. However, the report says, BS will have the right to use FT content and the brand in 2008. From the story, it appears that the deal between FT and Network18 is primarily an online one – in fact, a new online venture.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s been talk of a content partnership for print as well…through most of last year, the word on the street was that Network18 was looking to buy Business Standard – Raghav Bahl, MD of the Network18 Group, was eying the financial newspaper space. The group already has a financial news channel in TV18, had bought stake in Infomedia India and a wire service – Newswire18. Now the news business is highly regulated and there’s a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limit of 26 percent, so one can’t expect FT to go solo.

On it’s part, Business Standard has been trying to shake up the financial news market – launching Hindi and Gujarati business dailies…but I wonder if it’s being dressed up for a sale.The report also states that the Financial Times group owns around 14 percent stake in Business Standard, while the Kotak Group owns majority stake – Uday Kotak and the group together have around 55 percent stake – and the promoters of Great Eastern Shipping own 28 percent. BS Editor TN Ninan also has ownership stake.

Mint, which has reported this, itself has a content deal with the Wall Street Journal, though Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) doesnt have a stake. Its parent co, HT Media, however, is already full up on its FDI limit. Mint has more details on the issues that FT has faced in India, in a fairly detailed article here.