James Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of the Hong Kong-based Star group, started his day in Mumbai with a meeting with the top brass of Star India.
Murdoch is in town to take stock of the operations of his Indian business that has run into troubled waters on regulatory issues.
Murdoch is primarily in India to finalise an Indian partner who will be offered a 51 per cent stake in Star's 24-hour Indian news channel -- Star News. Star's news channel foray has been wrangled in a dispute over the ownership pattern of the news content company -- Media Content and Communication Services.
The current shareholding pattern does not meet the regulatory norms that permit the channel to uplink from India.
The media baron, however, has no plans to meet the PK Mittal group with which it has a tie-up for its radio venture in India. Star's radio foray in the country is also under scrutiny on regulatory grounds.
Also, there was no meeting with AV Birla group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, the erstwhile majority stakeholder in the news content company.
Star has been given time up to September 22 to get a dominant Indian partner in MCCS in order to comply with government rules recently laid down, which require an Indian shareholder with a stake of at least 51 per cent in any news uplinking venture.
Among the front-runners for the Star News pie are the Kolkata-based ABP group, advertising professional Suhel Seth, Merrill Lynch vice-chairman Hemendra Kothari, Hindustan Times editor Vir Sanghvi, lawyer Raian Karanjiwala, television personality Maya Alagh and actor Jeetendra Kapoor.
Currently, while Seth holds a 30 per cent stake in the company, Kothari and Karanjiwala hold 25 per cent and 4 per cent. Sanghvi, Alagh and Kapoor hold 5 per cent each in the company.
