More than a paper tiger

Q&A/ Sir Anthony O'Reilly

Sir Anthony O''Reilly

The CEO of Independent News & Media Plc (INM) Sir Anthony O'Reilly was in town recently to attend the annual board meeting of Jagran Prakashan and the first annual Jagran Forum organised by Jagran Foundation. INM holds 26 per cent stake in the Jagran group.

The 1.75 billion Euro media organisation based in Dublin, Ireland, owns over 165 print titles across the world. Sir Reilly speaks to Business Standard about his romance with India and his business interests in Jagran.

How long have you been associated with India?

Although we picked up 26 per cent stake in the Jagran group in June 2005, our association with India dates back much earlier.

On a personal level, my aunt was the Mother Superior at Loretto Convent, Lucknow and happens to be buried there. The Gupta family, which owns the Jagran group, were very kind to locate the place and take us there.

On a professional front, as chairman of Heinz we bought businesses in India in 1994. The opening of the frontiers of commerce made it all feasible. Then the Gupta family approached us five years ago.

But it was only in the last two years that the talks gathered momentum as we realised that what the Jagran people had been saying about the deregulation would actually be coming true. So you could say it's taken five years to consummate the marriage between Jagran and INM.

Where does India stand in the world of media?

Media is a hugely sensitive business all over the world. Everywhere there are different rules governing ownership. For instance while in Canada a foreigner cannot own media, in South Africa a foreigner can own 100 per cent of the media, yet only 15 per cent of radio. India has great romance and mystery about it.

The basic structure of India is based on two main pillars "" democracy and rule of law. And both these give us the confidence to invest in India.

Indian newsprint, which comes primarily from Russia, is slightly low on quality. Introducing more suppliers would ensure quality and arrest costs.

How did you get interested in a vernacular newspaper?

We've been hugely impressed by the Hindi market in India. We looked at the all the segments and noticed that the fastest growing market is the Hindi language newspaper.

While the total advertising revenue for press accounts for one billion Euros, the Hindi market alone commands about 250 million Euros. And Jagran appears to have about 25 per cent of that share. It is the largest Indian daily as far as circulation is concerned and clearly the most read newspaper in the country. I think it has the highest readership in the world as well.

How has your association been with Jagran?

It's an early stage of the marriage. The Gupta family appear to be an extremely warm and united family. We asked Madan Mohan Gupta to join us on the international advisory board which has a distinguished group of people across the world like Ben Bradley (of the Washington Post).

What's your role in Jagran?

We don't just bring money to the party, we bring in our skills in terms of advertising, newsprint and production along with our philosophy. We've ventured to places where no one has dared to go.

For instance, we went to South Africa in 1993 when Mandela had just taken over and we managed to get virtually 50 per cent of the press there.

Do you plan to diversify your business? What are your other fields of interest?

Our media interest in India is entirely centered around Jagran. We don't plan to run any parallel interest with other companies.

On the other hand, since our global interests include hotels, mining and natural resources, my son will be coming to India soon to look at the natural resources here, particularly oil and gas. We have several zinc mines and are interested in the natural resources. Another area of interest is the electronics device sector

We're looking at a long association with India . For we rank India among the two friendliest countries in the world along with Brazil.