MANILA – The Philippine Star Media Group (PhilStar) has formally announced its acquisition of BusinessWorld Publishing Corp. last week.
The company has secured 76.63% of BusinessWorld from Hastings Holdings Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company.
News about the deal started to brew in June when BusinessWorld’s board of directors elected Miguel Belmonte as its CEO, who will serve concurrently as the president and CEO of The Philippine Star, the flagship broadsheet of PhilStar.
Weeks after, adobo broke the news that Lucien Dy Tioco, Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing at the PhilStar, took on additional duties by taking on the same role at BusinessWorld.
While PhilStar has taken over the shares of Hastings Holding, the company and BusinessWorld both operate under MediaQuest Holdings, the Beneficial Trust Fund unit of PLDT.
Led by Manuel V. Pangilinan, MediaQuest has secured a majority stake in BusinessWorld back in 2013 while Pangilinan inked a share purchase agreement with the Belmonte family to acquire 51% of PhilStar.
In addition to BusinessWorld and PhilStar, MediaQuest also owns the Associated Broadcasting Co. (TV5), Nation Broadcasting Corp. (NBC), Cignal Digital TV (Cignal) and the Unitel Group.
“BusinessWorld remains the preeminent and most reputable business newspaper in the country. We believe that the synergies we can harness between PhilSTAR and BusinessWorld will greatly enhance the operations and financial results of both companies,” said Belmonte.
Ray Espinosa, chairman of BusinessWorld and Philippine STAR Group, said, “This fulfills our strategy of making the Philippine STAR Group a complete news and information organization with leading positions in general news, tabloid news, online news and now, business news. This wealth of sources will allow the Philippine STAR Group to provide more comprehensive news and information across all delivery platforms.”
Details about upcoming projects are tight under wraps, but adobo got word that BusinessWorld is currently testing a new website, which briefly went live in the wee hours of the morning last week.
