Ownership of Pioneer Group reorganised

Sanchar Holdings, the new entity formed by Chandan Mitra, Durbar Ganguly and Amit Goel, will hold a 57 per cent stake in The Pioneer Group.

The ownership of The Pioneer Group has changed hands. As per the new arrangement, Chandan Mitra (editor and managing director), Durbar Ganguly (joint managing director), and Amit Goel (group vice-chairman) will collectively hold 57 per cent stake in The Pioneer Group through Sanchar Holdings, their newly-floated company.

In Sanchar Holdings, the holding company of The Pioneer Group, Mitra will have a majority stake of 52 per cent. Ganguly and Goel will each have a 24 per cent stake in the newly-launched company.

Prior to this new arrangement, Mitra had 41 per cent stake in The Pioneer Group, while Ganguly had around 5 per cent.

The other shareholders in The Pioneer Group include IDBI Bank, ICICI bank, Rainbow Productions, Starlink Group of Chennai, and other small investors.

The Pioneer Group has an annual turnover of Rs 35 crore. The Group publishes the English daily The Pioneer from seven locations, of which five are franchise-based, and two are company-owned editions. It also publishes the niche magazine Exotica, distributed in premium hotels, the Rail Bandhu magazine (printed for the Indian Railways for distribution in the Rajdhani Express, the Shatabdi Express and the Duronto Express trains), and a Hindi version of The Pioneer, published from Lucknow.