Quint Digital Media and its subsidiaries, Quintillion Media and Quintillion Business Media, signed definitive agreements with AMG Media Networks, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, on May 13, to complete the divestment of a 49 percent stake in Quintillion Business Media. It is said that fortune favours the brave and in this case, fortune favoured Bahl.
Gain of 5000%:
Quint Digital Media’s market capitalization has risen to more than Rs 950 crore. In November 2018, Bahl purchased the company (renamed Quint Digital Media). He bought out the promoters’ (Gaurav Mercantile) stake in the company, then made an open offer to public shareholders. The total cost is Rs 7.85 crore. The shareholding of the promoters (Raghav and his wife Ritu Kapur) is now worth Rs 440 crore, a gain of over 5000 percent in four and a half years.
Bahl and Network18:
It is widely known that Bahl was forced to exit Network18 (the media company he founded) in 2014 after Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries decided to convert its debt into equity prematurely. Soon after, Bahl attempted to launch a business television channel in collaboration with Bloomberg, but that also failed because his licence took forever to arrive.
Bahl knew Digital Media is the future:
Bahl chose to focus on digital media, which never grew to the size he had envisioned for television.
He had to go through four years of struggle. The company had to write off an estimated Rs 200 crore of sunk investment in the proposed television business. Bahl’s listed company, Quint Digital Media, reported a revenue of Rs 21 crore and a loss of Rs 1.86 crore in 2020-21.
The way turnaround happened and the way Quint grew in a short time proved that Bahl knew that digital media is the future.
