Indrani Mukerjea

In 1996 Indrani founded INX Services Private Limited as a recruitment company in Kolkata. In 2001 Indrani moved to Mumbai, where her recruitment firm considered Reliance Industries as her most important client. The firm also handled recruitment for STAR India. In 2005, the firm formed a partnership with Switzerland-based global executive search specialist, IMD International Search Group, which appointed Indrani as its regional director, Asia Pacific.

In December 2006 Peter and Indrani Mukerjea became promoters of the INX Group, which consisted of human resources companies INX Services and INX Executive Search, and media companies INX Media and INX News. Indrani was appointed chairperson of INX Group. Peter and Indrani Mukerjea held a 50% stake in INX Media. The other half was held by private equity firms for a total funding of $170 million (₹750 crore according to the exchange rate at the time).

INX News was incorporated on 22 December 2006 with an authorized capital of ₹7.5 crore (75 million) divided into 75 lakh (7.5 million) shares of ₹10 each. INX Media took a 26% stake in INX News since Government of India regulations did not permit foreign direct investment in Indian news media beyond that limit at that time. IM Media, a corporate entity claimed to be 99% owned by Indrani Mukerjea through her holding company Indrani Incon Pvt Ltd., held the majority 51% stake in INX News. Indrani Mukerjea personally held a 17% stake. Peter Mukerjea, a foreign national, could not claim ownership in INX News. In March 2007 Vir Sanghvi, hired as CEO of INX News, was given a 16% stake as sweat equity.

Peter Mukerjea, bound by a non-compete clause from his previous employer, became chairman of the human resources company INX Services Private Limited in January 2007. In August 2007, Peter joined INX Media as chairman and chief strategy officer. In November 2007 Indrani became the CEO of INX Media.

At INX Media, Peter looked after advertisement, finance, distribution and revenues while Indrani was in charge of content, human resources and marketing. In the first phase of operations, INX Media launched the Hindi general entertainment channel 9X and the Hindi youth music channel 9XM in November 2007. NewsX, an English news channel, launched in March 2008. In its first year of operations, the INX Group spent almost the entire corpus it had raised from foreign investors. Employees suspected that vendors were encouraged to present inflated invoices so that the Mukerjeas could earn kickbacks. By September 2008, all the investors in INX Media were looking to sell some part of their stake to raise funding for the second phase of expansion. They wanted $150 million to launch three regional channels, three regional music channels and three city-specific news channels.

When the global financial crisis of 2007–08 hit the Indian media industry, advertisers could not pay their dues and INX Media in turn could not pay its vendors. Employees suspected that TRP ratings of the general entertainment channel 9X were being added to those of NewsX in order to present a rosy picture to the investors. An audit conducted by Temasek Holdings brought up suspicions that the Mukerjeas had siphoned off ₹160 crores (₹1.6 billion) from the company. In January 2009, the Mukerjeas sold INX Media and its loss-making channel NewsX to Indi Media Network, a partnership between the Nai Dunia promoter and CEO Vinay Chhajlani and former Businessworld editor Jehangir S Pochaa. By March 2009 INX Media had accumulated losses of Rs 800 crore and was in debt to the tune of Rs 100 crore. Temasek Holdings and Kotak Mahindra were looking to exit. With the company running out of cash and outstanding payments to creditors mounting, the Mukerjeas resigned from their management positions. In March 2009 Indrani left, with Peter following a month later. By April 2010, the Mukerjeas had sold their stake in the company. In May 2011, the Mukerjeas resigned from their position on the board of directors of the company.