GBN’s parent company the Trinidad-based media conglomerate, Caribbean Communication Network (CCN) has now acquired majority interest in and the Barbados's Nation Corporation on Friday.

CCN owns the Express Newspapers, CCN TV-6 and the Grenada Broadcasting Network (GBN), while the Barbados's Nation Corporation publishes the Nation newspapers and owns four radio stations under the Starcom Network.

Sir Fred Gollop, the Barbadian lawyer and Nation co-founder, who was named chairman of the CCN group in 2004, has been named chairman of the merged conglomerate.

Sir Fred, a former chairman of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA), co-owner of the Caribbean Media Corporation, is President of the Senate of Barbados.

The two companies have had a long-standing relationship dating back to the Nation newspaper's founding in 1973 with assistance from the Daily Express. The Express, forerunner of the CCN conglomerate, was formed in 1967.

Prior to the merger, the CCN group had owned 20 per cent of the shares in the Nation group and the Barbadian company owned 20 per cent of CCN.