Badri Patarkatsishvili, who said earlier this week that he will finance Georgian opposition parties, handed over his controlling stake in Imedi, a media group which businesses includes a TV station, a newspaper and a news agency, to News Corp. Financial terms of the deal were not revealed.

"Badri asked us if we would be willing to take over very broad powers in terms of his shares in the company. We know Badri personally and business wise for many years and we said 'Yes'," Martin Pompadur, News Corp's executive vice-president, said during a news briefing in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, according to Asia Media. "At this stage shares had not been transferred. What's happening today is not an actual transfer of shares."

Russian news agency Interfax earlier had quoted Patarkatsishvili that he had sold the shares to News Corp, but Pompadur said this was not true.

"We act as if we would have 100 per cent of shares. It will be for one year," Pompadur told Reuters after the briefing.

Most of Georgia's media is dominated by the government, and the opposition treats the Imedi television station as its main outlet to the public.

The fragmented opposition has recently regrouped to call for the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili on charges of corruption, accusations he has dismissed.

Patarkatsishvili is one of richest men in the country and had been head of the country's Olympic committee but being sacked later after standing for Saakashvili's opponents.

"There were a lot of accusations that Imedi was an opposition channel and we thought it would be very difficult for journalists to stay neutral in such a situation," said Irakly Rukhadze, a representative of the private equity Salford Fund which looks after Patarkatsishvili's stake in Imedi. "So, the final decision was made and the Georgian side handed over its shares to its American partners into management. Americans won't have the right to sell it."

Patarkatsishvili fled Russia to his native Georgia in 2000 after being accused of fraud. He said the charges were politically motivated, Asia Media reported.