News: Reed Elsevier to pick up ICICI Ventures’ stake in Infomedia

(DNA 15/05/2007) Mumbai - ICICI Ventures, the country’s largest venture capital firm, is likely to sell its entire 63.3 per cent stake in the publishing company, Infomedia, which is valued around Rs 235 crore at the current market price.

Highly placed sources said ICICI Ventures was earlier considering part-stake sale. But later it decided to sell the entire stake if it gets good valuations. Infomedia has twelve b2b titles and eight b2c special interest magazines in its repertoire.

It was further learnt that ICICI Ventures is in talks with UK’s Reed Elsevier for the stake sale. Infomedia India (formerly, Tata Infomedia) has a 51-49 joint venture with Reed Business Info, a division of Reed Elsevier. ICICI Ventures exit, Prakash Iyer, managing director, Infomedia India, told DNA Money: “It’s not true.”

Infomedia acquired its present name in 2003, when the Tatas exited the business and ICICI Ventures took over their majority stake in the company for Rs 120 crore. Infomedia’s flagship product Yellow Pages is the market leader in the business directories segment.

The company also plans to introduce Yellow Pages on other platforms like the Web and mobile phones. Incorporated as a commercial printing press in 1955 by the name of Tata Press, the company entered the information service business in 1991 with the publication of business directories, known as Yellow Pages, and was renamed Tata Infomedia.