ABP chief executive officer and managing director Dipankar Das Purkayastha has rubbished the rumour that RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group chairman Sanjiv Goenka buying West Bengal's iconic Anand Bazaar Patrika Group.
Purkayastha called the rumours in the media circles about ABP's potential sale as baseless.
"This is completely wrong and there is no truth in it," he said.
When asked if ABP Group is up for sale, he replied, "There is no possibility of divesting single percent stake to anyone."
Following the government's demonetisation move, the ABP Group has laid off many people.
In last three months, the group has reduced 40-47% of its employees, including editorial and non-editorial staff. The group reduced the number of pages and stopped supplements such as the Telegraph Platinum Magazine and Graphiti.
There are rumours in the industry that Goenka is one of the frontrunners to acquire the ABP Group. Goenka owns the weekly Open magazine. He did not reply to emails and text messages when asked for a response.
The ABP Group recently sacked 700 of its employees.
In a statement, Purkayastha said the group will carry out a professional assessment of the company over the coming months involving editors as well as business managers.
The statement added that the group needs to "rightsize" to navigate the challenges facing print media and the economic realities.
"The painful measures ABP is taking now are part of that churn and process," the statement noted.
BW Reporters
The author is a journalist with BW Businessworld. He primarily covers Retail, Media & Entertainment and Travel & Tourism sectors
_20241112192741_original_image_24.webp)
_20241112191609_original_image_33.webp)
_20241112190831_original_image_4.webp)
