Mumbai: Media major Bennett Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL) has sold a majority stake in its Wholly-owned remittances subsidiary Timesofmoney to UAE-based Network International.
As part of the deal, Network International, which is engaged in the payments space in Middle-East and Africa, will acquire a majority stake in Timesofmoney from its parent Times Internet, a subsidiary of BCCL. However, no financial details of the deal were disclosed.
Timesofmoney felt it was necessary to have a strategic investor on board as it was not able to tap into the largest inward remittances source of Middle East, its Chief Executive Avijit Nanda told PTI.
The chief executive of Network International Bhairav Trivedi said his company was entering the cross-border remittances space through the acquisition.
Both Nanda and Trivedi, as well as Network International's chairman Abdulla Qaseem declined to specify the deal size or the percentage of equity changing hands.
A Timesofmoney statement said Times Internet will continue to hold a minority stake in the company and also have a board seat.
Trivedi said post-acquisition, Network International plans to grow Timesofmoney's online merchant acquisition business, enter the white label ATMs (non-banking entities who are now allowed to set up ATMs) in the next round of bidding and also the point of sales terminals businesses.
Nanda said Timesofmoney facilitated up to $3.5 billion of the total of $65 billion in remittances into India in FY2011-12.
Middle East contributed to around $24 billion of the total remittances into India and the company, which now has the capability to serve the geography having a large India diaspora, will aim to capture at least a "couple of percentage points" of that business to start with, Trivedi said.
Network International will retain the entire team of 210 employees at Timesofmoney post deal, he added.
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