Indian Premier League (IPL) will not go for an Initial Public Offer (IPO) and listing on the stock exchanges for raising money, its Chairman and Commissioner Lalit Modi said today. "Why should we go for an IPO? We don't want to raise money," Modi said.
He was responding to a query whether he would like to leverage from the huge success of IPL, which is expected to see revenues doubling this year from less than $500 million in the last season, and go public.
The success of IPL as a business idea has also catapulted its brand value to $4.13 billion this season, more than double from last year's $2.03 billion, according to brand consultancy firm Brand Finance.
It may be recalled that that after winning Team Pune of IPL with a staggering bid of Rs 1,702 crore, Sahara Group Chief Subroto Roy had said that IPO was an option in a year or two -- just like many European football clubs including AS Roma and Juventus.
Modi said that public offering and listing is usually resorted to for garnering funds for business and added that IPL was a huge success and revenue generator and there was no need for collecting money through IPO route.
At the same time, he explained that IPL was not a subsidiary of of the Board for Control of Cricket in India, which is a charitable organisation. But by virtue of being a sub-committee of BCCI, it was not in the mandate of IPL to go public, he added.
He, however, asserted "that it is not a question of whether we could... Rather it is we don't want to go public."