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Showing posts from 2017

How doing Outsized Partnerships led Karadi down the Wrong Path

Business Line  has a fascinating account of the travails faced by Chennai-based children's entertainment and education brand, Karadi Tales, in its search for strategic / financial partners. Viswanath has been fire-fighting to keep afloat Karadi Tales (now a unit of Karadi Path), the company he and his wife Shobha founded in 1996. A distribution agreement with Times Music had landed them in court. And the merger with ACK Media (publishers of Amar Chitra Katha) and subsequent acquisition by Kishore Biyani’s Future Ventures didn’t pan out as expected.  ...The partnership (with Times Music) turned sour when there was a change in leadership at Times Music...When Viswanath cited the exit clause and asked for the agreement to be nullified, his partner refused to oblige and instead took him to court, which issued a stay order. Viswanath and his team, despite founding Karadi Tales, could no longer use the brand. “It took us two years to get out of the case,” says Viswanath, who als