VNU holds 30 per cent in the outfit and will buy out the Advanis' stake for a consideration of $22 million (over Rs 90 crore), informed sources said. With this, VNU's stake will stand increased to 80 per cent and the rest 20 per cent will be held by Titoo Ahluwalia (15.5 per cent) and associates (5 per cent).

Sources said the parties would seal the deal, which awaits the Reserve Bank of India clearance, in the next couple of days. The deal has been on the negotating table for the last three months. Business India group chairman Ashok Advani was, however, not available for comments.

With this sell-out, the Business India group, which has been besotted by financial problems going by the largescale debts to be retired, will get a breather and is likely to pump life into its othermedia operations. ORG-Marg is valued around Rs 200 crore said sources close the group.

VNU is a $3.5-billion Dutch trade-publishing major which picked up a stake in ORG-Marg a year ago. After getting into its fold the Advanis' stake, VNU's holding in the outfit will increase to 80 per cent. Sources said Ahluwalia would continue with his holding in the company.

Besides, assisting the Business India group in retiring its debt, the deal will give a shot in the arm to the market research and retail audit functions of ORG-Marg, which has been in existence for nearly 35 years. Even though ORG-Marg is by far the leader in the field of market research, the firm is in desparate need to expand operations in the wake of emerging competition and the strength of IMRB. This will be possible through the deep pockets of VNU.

In all, ORG employs 1,600 employees. Compared with this, IMRB's strength is 423 employees. Even though there is emerging competition from Nielsens and AIMS, these are comparatively small setupswith the total employee strength of Nielsens being just about 150 employees. Industry observers feel that with VNU consolidating its position in ORG-Marg, the outfit will benefit in sharpening its retail audit business and enable it to sustain emerging competition.

While VNU has its core interest as a trade publisher, it's presence in research and ad-hoc retailing is not very large. For VNU, the deal will prove to be a major plank on which it can leverage its operations in Asia-Pacific, subsequent to which it would try to make a beeline for the US and Europe, say industry observers.

The major gameplan of VNU, say sources, is to expand its research operations and to get a foothold in the Asia Pacific market through ORG-MARG.

The immediate change that will come about at ORG-Marg is at the board level. Three directors representing the BI group --Rajkumar Advani, Ashok Advani and Hiroo Advani --will be quitting the board and these positions are likely to be filled up by VNU representatives. At present,there are three VNU directors on the board of ORG-MARG. Among these is director Peter Tordoire. The board chairman is Titoo Ahluwalia.

The Business India group is apparently burdened with a huge debt burden. The group was in a dire need for funds to flush out the debts. With no revenue flowing into TV channels, the group was dipping into the magazine business for quite some time now. The severe financial constraint did result in employees not being paid their salaries on time. As a result scores of them have quit the organisation in the last one year.

Rumours of its satellite television company "BiTV" being on the block have also being doing the rounds from time to time.

BiTV started off in 1994 with a bang. It was company in which BBC was keen to pick up a stake. The software was good and everything seemed going their way. A small hitch in the form of not getting uplinking facility from Nepal did the group in. Consequently, the group found itself borrowing short-term high interest money from the ICDmarket as the uplinking was delayed by nearly a year.

Among the three brothers, Ashok Advani holds 90 per cent in BiTV, and has been trying hard to arrange funds from institutional investors, amidst talks of his selling his equity in assorted group companies.

In the early 90's when Advani took a position in ORG-MARG and this was viewed to be a futuristic vision to turn the BI Group into an "information powerhouse", as an analyst puts it, with the TV venture almost commensurating this dream. However, the failing of the satellite TV venture, has had a snowballing effect on the group as a whole.