Our Bureau

Chennai , Nov. 7

THE DMK chief, Mr M. Karunanidhi, on Monday told a press conference that his wife had "relinquished" her 20 per cent stake in Sun Network. "She has very amicably relinquished her shares and received the proceeds," Mr Karunanidhi said.

He said that she had "divided the proceeds and given me" Rs 10 crore. After making provisions for income tax, he had set up the `Kalaignar Karunanidhi Charitable Trust' with a corpus of Rs 5 crore.

Mr Karunanidhi, who preferred not to answer any questions on the stake-sale, said that the Trust would receive an interest income of Rs 2.5 lakh, which would be "spent towards the development of Tamil language and financial assistance for medical treatment, marriages and educational pursuits to the poor and weaker sections."

Sun Network has thirteen TV channels, four FM radio stations, two daily newspapers and four magazines in several Indian languages. It claims to have on offer 50,000 hours of original content a year.

Sun Network is majority-owned by the family members of Mr Karunanidhi's nephew, the late Murasoli Maran.

A few years ago, Sun Network had planned to come out with an IPO (to raise about Rs 1,200 crore, it was said at that time), but the company's Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Kalanithi Maran told Business Line in May that he had given up the idea. "Our internal reserves are good enough to take care of our future plans," he had said.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu Business Line