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United News of India has begun the process of auction, according to media reports. Five entities are going to participate in the bidding process. Gautam Adani’s brother-in-law, Rakesh Ramanlal Shah and BJP MP, MJ Akbar are among other bidders for the stake.
The bidding process is expected to take two to three months. The Statesman newspaper, Brain Trust of India, Four Square Infrastructure, and former Chauthi Duniya editor Santosh Bhartia are the other bidders in this auction, the report said. Akbar will participate as a representative of Brain Trust of India.
UNI was founded on 19 December 1959 as an English news agency. Its commercial operations started on 21 March 1961.
“The agency has rbeen running at a loss for several years. It began defaulting on payments to employees from 2017. The final blow came in 2020 when state broadcaster Prasar Bharati unsubscribed its services, taking away crores of annual revenue,” added the report.
In May last year, the National Company Law Tribunal passed an order in favour of UNI’s union which alleged the agency had defaulted on payments worth Rs 103 crore.