Foreign investment continues to flood Broadcasting, Information & Technology, Telecom and Media sectors and the government has approved six proposals and deferred three more as suggested by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board. European publisher of specialty magazines, periodicals and journals, Gruner + Jahr International Magazines, has received approval to enter the country. It will invest Rs. 0.01 crores in setting up a wholly owned subsidiary here. Gruner+Jahr is part of the Bertelsmann Group, owner of erstwhile music company BMG which became Sony BMG Music Entertainment after Sony Corporation bought 50% shares in it. Bertelsmann AG owns 74.9% of Gruner + Jahr, while the remaining 25.1% is owned by Hamburg family Jahr. G+J publishes over 300 magazines including GEO, National Geographic, NG Traveler, Sensa, CHIP, PC Guru, Glamour and Gala. G+J sells 40,000 copies of its flagship magazine GEO in India. It also acquired portals such as Stylio.pl, a social shopping site, STORY.pl, a Polish photo community site and German performance marketing firm Ligatus. It has typically entered into a joint venture (50:50 ownership) with a local publisher. Its long term strategy is to evolve from being just a magazine publisher to a media house, with investments in online events, TV, mobile, multimedia sectors, according to a 2007 presentation on e4M. After Forbes India launched in May this year, another global news and current affairs magazine, the UK based Spectator, will be available in its Indian edition soon. ContentSutra first reported that Telegraph Publications Pvt Ltd, which publishes the newspaper The…
