Kalanithi Maran

Kalanithi Maran (born 1964) is an Indian media baron who is the chairman and managing director of Sun Group, which was the most profitable television network in Asia.

In June 2010, he acquired Spice Jet which was the most profitable airlines in India. Later on 15th January 2015, he exited from Spicejet and transferred the ownership to the original owner Ajay Singh. While his television channels and newspapers are primarily concentrated in South India, his FM radio stations and DTH service are spread across the country.

Business Expansion

In 1990, Maran started a monthly video (VHS) news magazine in Tamil called Poomaalai which was stopped in 1992 due to piracy On 14 April 1993, he founded Sun TV with an investment of US$86,000 from a bank loan.Sun TV was listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange on 24 April 2006 upon raising $133 million and catapulting him into the billionaire charts.He was among the few representatives at a roundtable with the visiting then US President Bill Clinton.

By 2010, he was the 17th richest Indian with net worth of US$4 Billion, and he is the highest paid business man in India.[ During his visit to Mumbai in 2010, US President Barack Obama praised Kalanithi Maran's Spicejet as one of the job creators in USA Maran and his wife, Kavery Maran were second in the list of Indian executive pay charts with a package of Rs.62 crore (US$9.8 million) each for the fiscal 2011–2012, behind Congress MP Naveen Jindal.

He has won Young Businessman awards from CNBC and ERNST & Young and Forbes magazine named him the "Television king of southern India". In 2010 he won theNews Television Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Business Entities:-

· Sun Network – South Indian Television Channels

· Sun Direct DTH – Direct to Home broadcasting Service.

· Red FM – Multilingual Indian Radio

· Sun Pictures – Tamil Movie Production house

· Sun 18 – to distribute its channels through cable, DTH, IPTV, HITS and MMDSk.

· Sunrisers Hyderabad- IPL team from Hyderabad