- Adani group has required 49 percent stake in Quintillion Business Media Pvt Ltd
- Apparently, the deal is anathema to what Quint is known for as the company has been a vocal critic of big business houses
- Future holds a thorough excitement as it is entirely possible that Adani may acquire a 100 percent stake in the group
Media professionals are often advised to stick to the basics and not target individuals, instead, they are told to target their actions. But, leftist media do not stick to norms as their whole USP is based on breaking the established ones. But, more often than not, targeting individuals backfire, especially if that targeting does not have much substance in reality. Right now, no one understands it better than Quint employees. Their abuse of Adani group is set to boomerang on them.
Adani buys stake in Quint
Media reports have confirmed that Gautam Adani is now a shareholder in Quint. Adani’s AMG Media Networks, a unit of his conglomerate Adani Enterprises is set to acquire a 49 percent stake in Quintillion Business Media Pvt Ltd, a well-known leftist digital news platform. According to a report by Business Standard, the final sum has not been disclosed.
To finalise the deal, Adani group signed two kinds of agreements with various arms working to run Quint. It signed a share purchase agreement with Quintillion Media Ltd (QML), Quintillion Business Media Ltd (QBML) and Quint Digital Media Ltd (QDML). A share purchase agreement is a legal contract between two parties, a seller and a buyer. It is made to confirm the buyer’s stake in the company.
Then the Adani group went on to discuss the shaping of news portals. For this it signed a Shareholders” agreement with Ltd QML and QBML. Shareholders’’ agreement is signed among shareholders to ascertain the future course of the company in the wake of arrival of new members (here Adani group) on board.
Read more: Left-Wing News Portal ‘The Quint’ is all set to shut down
Quint confirms the rumours going around for months
The news was later confirmed by QDML as well. In its regulatory filing, it informed, “We would like to inform you that pursuant to the Memorandum of Understanding dated March 1, 2022, the Company and its material subsidiaries Quintillion Media Limited and Quintillion Business Media Ltd have signed definite agreements with AMG Media Networks Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited, to conclude the divestment of 49% stake in Quintillion Business Media Ltd,”
Apparently, the rumours of Adani acquiring stakes in Quint have been making rounds since last year. In September 2021, Adani group appointed Sanjay Pugalia, former president of Quint Digital Media to lead its media company, Adani Media Ventures. In March this year, Bloomberg and Quint announced that they had restructured their existing partnership. With the new arrangement, Quint could only redistribute Bloomberg’s content in India but could not co-produce anything with the Manhattan-based company. Details are awaited, but it has been a talk of the town that Adani may have picked up Bloomberg’s shares.
Quint-A reservoir of everything wrong with left
Quint has been infamous for bashing everything well with India and Hindus. Most of the Indians put Quint in the same category as that of Newslaundry, Scroll.in, The News Minute, The Wire and ScoopWhoop. Its sensationalised way of reporting things has done a lot of collateral damage to India, especially the nationalist section in the country.
In 2017, Indian Army booked one of its reporters for allegedly abetting the suicide of one of its naiks. Similarly, when the whole nation was praying for Kulbhusan Jadhav, Quint published a story claiming that Jadhav was a RAW spy in Pakistan. The report was used by Pakistani authorities as a vindication of their claim about Jadhav. In the past, the portal has also depicted India’s territory as that of Pakistan.
Read more: The Quint depicts India’s territory as that of Pakistan’s
Quint also seems to be attempting to stoke discontent inside the country. The narrative that ‘poor Muslims of the country are being victimised by Hindu nationalists’ has been a key theme of its reporting. It’s pro-Muslim stand has gone to such an extent that the portal ended up whitewashing a rape accused named Md. Pasha. Its lopsided coverage of Kashmir issue further dented its reputation among 1.4 billion Indians.
Read more: On Kashmir issue, NDTV, Wire, Quint and Scroll have failed India
Is Adani taking over Quint?
The portal has been especially repulsive to wealth creators in the economy. By needlessly pushing inequality data in the country, it tried to gain Marxist sympathisers. Apparently, it would never cover how these industrialists are investing back in the country, creating more jobs, capital and infrastructure.
Big changes are being observed in businesses all around the world. A discontented Elon Musk ended up buying Twitter. It would not be a surprise if Adani ends up buying 100 percent stake as well.