Murdoch Eyes 2 It Firms

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, as part of his strategy to make major investments in the Indian infotech industry, is planning to take stakes in two IT companies, Microland group's ITSpace.com and e-tailing portal Fabmart.

Also, Murdoch recently inked an investment pact with indiaproperties.com.

Confirming the proposed investments in ITSpace.com, Bangalore-based industry sources said Murdoch would soon close the deal with Microland's Pradeep Kar.

Recently, News Corp, the Murdoch flagship, announced strategic investments in another Microland company, indya.com.

The sources also said though the Reliance group had picked up the controlling stake in Fabmart, Murdoch is keen on even a minority stake in the company.

The recent spate of Murdoch investments in the Indian infotech sector is part of his corporate strategy to become a major IT player in South Asia.

His other investments in India include Baazee.com where he has assigned Star TV's executive vice-president Gary Walrath as his representative on the board. Baazee has also received investments from the US-based Global Bridge Ventures and New Bridge Asia, a leading private equity group formed in 1994 in the US to invest in Asian businesses.

According to Walrath, "Baazee.com's auction business perfectly fits into Star's investment strategy to find local partners with compelling contents and good business models.

"We believe that on-line auctions can revolutionise the buying and selling activities in India."

Baazee.com also said it would tie up with various vertical and horizontal portals to offer on-line auctioning. It will offer this facility to various websites which are planing to offer auction as a service to its consumers. In addition to this, the company is also planing WAP enabling its service offering so that the consumers will be able to access the services using various mobile devices. For offering this service the company will tie up various mobile service providers in the country.

On his last visit to India earlier this year, Murdoch had told Business Standard: "Our aim will be to spread entertainment through all the avenues (available because of technology)."

He made it clear that his visit to India was to explore investments in the IT sector which is booming here.

As part of this strategy, Murdoch is investing directly and also through a joint venture with P K Mittal, eVentures India Ltd.

Star TV will be involved in three major areas here _- IT, content creation and television broadcasting. It is looking at making Bangalore the centre for infotech operations. Mumbai will be the hub for content creation, mainly for movies, and television.