Who Owns Your Media: Hindustan Times’s journey from broadsheet to media conglomerate

It was 1924. Four years after the non-cooperation movement had begun, recognising and awakening India’s desire for self-governance, a newspaper was launched by the Akalis and inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi.

This newspaper was Hindustan Times – still a well-known daily nearly 100 years after its launch.

Within six months, Madan Mohan Malaviya bought the newspaper and by 1927, it was incorporated as a joint stock company with Ghanshyam Das Birla as one of its biggest shareholders. By the 1930s, GD Birla had taken complete charge. The company launched its Hindi daily, Hindustan, in 1936.

GD Birla’s son, Krishna Kumar Birla, joined the company in 1957 and was chairman of the group’s main operating company, HT Media Limited, until his death in 2008. Having planned his succession much ahead, he had appointed his daughter, Shobhana Bhartia, as its chief executive as early as 1986 – making her the first woman chief executive of a national newspaper in India at the age of 29.

A profile of Bhartia in Forbes magazine indicates that she was behind the shift from the newspaper being a vehicle of nation-building to a self-sustaining business. None of ancestors had envisioned the newspaper as a means for making profits; in fact, KK Birla used to be perplexed when Bhartia indulged in small celebrations to mark profits.

HT Media Limited was listed as a public company in 2004 and after that expanded and diversified in a big way.

Hindustan Times entered the Mumbai market in 2005, the same year DNA and Mumbai Mirror were launched. In fact, it’s said that the Times of India conceptualised and launched Mumbai Mirror in anticipation of the upcoming competition and to retain its stronghold in Mumbai.

In 2006, HT Media launched Fever FM in collaboration with the Virgin Group, followed by Mint newspaper and the Livemint website a year later in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. It also diversified into the online job market with Shine.com in 2008, the Times Group having already entered the space four years prior with TimesJobs.com.

Between 2016 and 2019, the group not only launched its second radio channel, Radio Nasha, in Mumbai and Delhi, but also acquired 51 percent stake in Radio One, now its third radio station.

Right before the pandemic hit and catalysed the digital race manifold in all industries, HT had launched its podcast destination, HT Smartcast, in 2019. The group’s digital portfolio also includes women’s health website Healthshots.com, lifestyle and entertainment portal DesiMartini.com, and the custom content offerings FAB Market and Fab Play.

Consolidation + closure = clean-up drive

Today, HT Media Limited, or HTML, owns most of the HT group’s main media businesses, including the English newspapers, radio channels, digital and commercial printing businesses. This ownership is direct as well as indirect through its subsidiaries. As of FY 2020, HTML had 16 subsidiaries, including 74.4 percent stake in Hindustan Media Ventures Limited, HVML, which publishes Hindustan and also issued an IPO in 2010. HT Content Studio LLP is an associate company.

The group is on a consolidation spree. In 2021, with a view to simplify the group structure by consolidation of legal entities with no material business, six of HTML’s subsidiaries were amalgamated with HT Mobile Solutions Ltd, in which HT Media has 8.43 percent holding and is an indirect subsidiary through HT Digital Media.

The six subsidiaries were HT Digital Media Holdings Ltd, in which HTML has 99.99 percent holding, HT Education Ltd (100 percent), HT Learning Centers Ltd (67.22 percent owned by HTML, remaining owned by HT Education Ltd), Firefly e-Ventures Ltd (an indirect subsidiary through HT Digital, which has 99.99 percent equity stake in it), India Education Services Private Ltd (99.99 percent), and Topmovies Entertainment Ltd (100 percent).

The group is also looking to merge Next Mediaworks Ltd in which HTML has 51 percent stake, Digicontent Ltd, and HT Mobile Solutions Ltd with HTML. It also plans to amalgamate Syngience Broadcast Ahmedabad Ltd with its parent, Next Radio Ltd, in which HTML has 48.6 percent stake; the remaining shares are owned by Next Mediaworks Ltd. The company has filed requests for both amalgamation schemes and is awaiting sanction from the National Company Law Tribunal.

HTML’s other subsidiaries include HT Music and Entertainment Company Ltd (100 percent); HT Overseas Private Ltd incorporated in Singapore (100 percent); HT Noida (Company) Ltd through Hindustan Media Ventures Ltd; and TechCircle’s parent Mosaic Media, acquired in 2020 from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Mosaic Media also provides subscription-based research databases and has a presence in the events business.

2020 and 2021 also saw two of HTML’s wholly owned subsidiaries – HT Global Education Private Ltd and Shine HR Tech Ltd – being struck off. Sports Asia Private Ltd, in which HTML has 50.5 percent stake through HT Overseas Private Ltd, is also gazetted to be struck off.

The moolah metre

Look at the figures from the past five years, and you’ll find that HT Media’s income declined by about Rs 100 crore every year from Rs 2,682 crore in FY 2017. But it took the biggest hit in FY 2021, when it slid by about Rs 1,000 crore from 2,310 in the previous year. And HTML began heading towards losses right before the pandemic broke out in 2020. After a 65 percent increase in profits from Rs 216 crore in FY 2017 to Rs 356 crore in FY 2018, it witnessed a sharp downturn in FY 2019, with profits standing at a meagre Rs 2.85 crore. Then came the pandemic, and losses in FY 2020 stood at Rs 340 crore.

On the upside, the measures HTML has been taking – whether it’s cost cutting or restructuring – seem to be paying off. In FY 2021, losses came down to Rs 60 crore and unaudited results of the nine-month period ending December 2021 show a recovery with a net profit of Rs 5.7 crore.

While the group’s print revenues have seen fluctuations for some years, the vertical saw losses only in 2021. And it’s bouncing back too – from a Rs 96 crore loss in FY 2021, the nine-month period ending December 2021 saw a net profit of Rs 13.5 crore.

HMVL, which owns Hindustan, seems to be contributing 40-50 percent of the group’s print revenue. In 2017, when HTML’s overall print income stood at Rs 2,132.5 crore, HMVL’s alone was Rs 933.27 crore. Likewise, HTML’s FY 2021 print income was Rs 955.52 crore while HMVL’s was Rs 545.43 crore. Even during the pandemic, HMVL suffered no losses.

However, the radio business has been bleeding since 2020. It saw a loss of Rs 59 crore that year, followed by a Rs 96 crore loss in FY 2021 and a Rs 42 crore loss in the nine-month period ending December 2021.

As for the digital business, it’s interesting to note that while revenue has dipped from Rs 151.36 crore in 2017 to Rs 89.96 crore in 2021, losses too have shrunk by 95 percent – from Rs 39 crore to Rs 1.84 crore – in the same period.

As of now, print seems to be the group’s biggest revenue generator and HTML’s only profit-making segment. In a way, this busts the perception in the media industry that there’s no money in print anymore.

At the time of publishing, the market cap of HTML was Rs 460.84 crore and HMVL Rs 398.93 crore.

Ownership patterns

When it comes to ownership, almost all roads lead to Shobhana Bhartia, who holds the largest stake in HTML and group companies through various holding companies.

Of HT Media’s Rs 23.3 crore equity shares, 69.51 percent are owned by the promoting company, The Hindustan Times Ltd.

Of the remaining 30.49 percent, 0.94 percent is owned by HT Media Employee Welfare Trust and 29.56 percent by the public. Among the public, those holding more than one percent shares include institutions like Government Pension Fund Global, which is Norway’s Oil Fund and has 1.5 percent stake, and Karma Capital which holds 1.1 percent shares. Among individuals are Hardik Patel, son of leading equity investor Bharat Jayantilal Patel, who owns 1.25 percent, and Ranga Prasad N who, besides 1.73 percent shares in HTML, also holds 1.61 percent in HMVL.

The Hindustan Times Ltd, which holds 69.51 percent of HT Media’s Shares, is largely owned by two entities – Earthstone Holding (Two) Private Ltd that holds 74.65 percent shares, and Earthstone Holding Investment and Finance Ltd that holds 10.02 percent.

The remaining equity shares are divided among nearly 460 shareholders, mostly individuals but also some organisations. Worth noting are Sarvajanik Medical Centre, which holds 1.89 percent; the medical centre is a non-profit organisation by Jubilant Bhartia Group, owned by Shobhana’s husband Shyam Bhartia. There’s also Hindustan Medical Institution and Eastern India Medical Institution, both of which hold 3.7 percent each, and the ASK Group’s Kotichas, who hold over one percent shares.

The Hindustan Times Ltd’s preference shares are also split between Earthstone Holding (Two) Private Ltd, which has 97.22 percent stake, and SB Trusteeship Services Private Ltd, which holds the remaining 2.77 percent jointly with Shobhana Trustee Company Private Ltd.

Shobhana holds 99.99 percent stake in both SB Trusteeship Services Private Ltd (SBTSPL) and Shobhana Trustee Company Private Ltd (STCPL). While her elder son Priyavrat owns a nominal share and is a director in SBTSPL, the younger son Shamit owns a nominee share and is a director in STCPL. Shamit is married to Nayantara Kothari, daughter of Mukesh Ambani’s sister Nina Kothari.

Interestingly, among the first directors of both companies was also politician Jyotiraditya Scindia, who resigned from both positions after the first year of incorporation. Bhartia herself was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2006.

Today, a common director in both is Rajshree Pathy, chairperson and managing director of the Rajshree Group of Companies and founder of India Design Forum. Pathy inherited the family business – of which sugar is a big part – after the untimely death of her father, G Varadaraj in 1990. The sugar business was a big part of KK Birla group of companies as well; after Birla’s demise, the sugar business was inherited by Bhartia’s elder sister, Nandini Nopani. Both G Varadraj and KK Birla were also parliamentarians around the same time – while the former was a member of the Rajya Sabha for six years from 1983, Birla was a Rajya Sabha member for three successive terms from 1984 to 2002. In fact, Pathy is also a close family friend of the Chidambarams.

SBTSPL and STCPL companies together also own BCM Holding Ltd, which in turn owns 100 percent shares of Earthstone Holding Investment and Finance Ltd, as well as 99.94 percent equity shares and 11.42 preference shares of Earthstone Holding (Two) Private Ltd. The latter’s remaining preference shares are split between Shobhana Bhartia (39.34 percent), The Hindustan Times Ltd (25.63 percent) and CM Airtime Promotion LLP (22.84 percent). Paxton Estate Management Services and Bhartia Bachat Ltd hold three shares each.

All financial and ownership details are derived from financial statements and other company documents filed by the media house with the ministry of corporate affairs, the Bombay Stock Exchange, and the National Stock Exchange.

Infographics by Gobindh VB.