Rupert Murdoch Reboots Internet Play In India

MUMBAI: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has charted a fresh investment plan to tap into India's fast-growing consumer internet story more than a decade after he took bets on domestic digital properties like Indya.com and Baazee. The media giant is rebooting tactical investments as part of a strategy to aggressively expand the group's digital play in markets like India, sources aware of the development said. Murdoch's comeback coincides with euphoric investor sentiment around India's recent billion-dollar internet and digital startups.

News Corp's senior vice-president for strategy Raju Narisetti is leading the media giant's investment interests in India, a source cited earlier who did not want to be named said. The New York-based media giant, which split its publishing and broadcasting units last year, has been making "targeted investments" into digital assets in south-east Asian markets recently.

"Because it is widely known that News Corp has no debt and started its new journey with $2-billion plus in cash, I am constantly and relentlessly pitched by investment bankers on potential deals. If it makes strategic sense, I tend to take a closer look and from that point of view, most of Asia, including India, will always be on the radar," News Corp's Narisetti said in an email to TOI. Its recent regional investments included a stake purchase in employment listings portal Seek Asia. The company, through REA, an online real estate services provider in Australia, has forged partnerships in China and Hong Kong, besides buying a $100-million stake in iProperty.com, which has a network of sites across Asia, including in India.

Globally, News Corp bolstered its digital strategy with acquisitions like Storyful, a social media news agency, and Harlequin, which will give HarperCollins a jumpstart on its international digital expansion. These investments, explained News Corp's CEO Robert Thomson last week in an internal note, are part of the group's push "to grow digitally and globally", making technology a canvas for content.

In the first wave of the dot-com boom, Murdoch, after whirlwind visits to Bangalore, had actively invested in first-generation internet startups in India. His big buy came when News Corp paid $50 million to buy Pradeep Kar-promoted portal Indya followed by an investment of $11 million in auction site Baazee, started by two Harvard Business School graduates which was sold off to eBay in 2004.

Global strategics and private equity investors like Carlyle and TPG, which shied away from the latest Indian internet economy, are now looking to cut big cheques in this burgeoning space. PE giant Carlyle Group, for instance, may deploy around $100-200 million investments into emerging digital companies.