Morris, IT company team up for ‘outsourcing services’

ATLANTA — A Georgia-based newspaper chain has agreed to a joint venture with an IT company from India, the companies announced on Wednesday.

The joint venture — NIIT Media Technologies LLC, created with NIIT Technologies — “will provide integrated IT and business process outsourcing services,” the companies said in a news release.

NIIT Technologies will have a 60 percent controlling interest in the joint venture, while Augusta-based Morris Communications will have a 40 percent stake, The Times of India reported. The joint venture is expected to bring in $85 million in revenue over five years, The Times of India reported.

“This partnership will significantly reduce our costs of operations and services, while improving the level of services required to meeting our objectives in the future,” Steve K. Stone, senior vice president and CFO of Newspapers and Shared Services at Morris Communications, said in a news release.

As part of the agreement, Morris will transfer to the newly formed joint venture its key assets such as IT infrastructure and the assets of its MStar Solutions subsidiary, about 100 people and “application landscape,” according to the news release and The Times of India report.

“This is a strategic transformational deal which enhances our onshore presence to expand our footprint in the US market,” Lalit Dhingra, president of NIIT Technologies Inc., said in a news release.

Morris Communications is a privately held company. The company owns 13 daily newspapers, including the Athens Banner-Herald, The Augusta Chronicle, the Savannah Morning News and the Florida Times-Union.