Petaling Jaya – Media Prima Berhad (MPB) is set to recover its investment in the Philippines following the proposed divestment of its entire 70 per cent equity stake in its subsidiary, MPB Primedia Inc to Mediaquest Holdings Inc. for US$16 million. In March 2008,MPB invested in Primedia, a company that had entered into a block airtime and consultancy agreement with ABC5, a national free to air television network in the Philippines as an initial seed for its proposed Media Fund. The Fund was intended to enable MPB to part invest in and manage various regional media assets that have long term value whilst at the same time minimizing the impact of the expected gestation losses from these assets on MPB’s earnings and balance sheet. Under the block airtime agreement, Primedia managed the sale of ABC5’s airtime whilst undertaking a complete repositioning of the station to be known as TV5, to target a younger segment of the Philippines market, together with improving the station’s transmission quality. In addition, Media Prima Berhad announced its proposal to acquire Malaysia’s oldest and largest newspaper publisher, The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad (NSTP). The consolidation of the two media companies is projected to generate over RM1 billion in annual revenue with net profits exceeding RM140 million.