NEWSMAKER: Raghav Bahl

Creating a fortune from scratch

Raghav Bahl is on a roll. From a struggling, niche business channel, his recently re-branded Network 18 has blossomed in ways that few could have imagined.

It promises to become one of India's few media conglomerates, straddling not just multiple television channels but also films, the Internet, wire services, magazines, newspapers and perhaps radio and gaming as well "" a range that no one else straddles.

It seems inevitable, therefore, that the 47-year-old son of an IAS officer, an alumnus of Delhi University's business school and St Stephen's College, should be recognised as the country's most exciting first-generation media entrepreneur, one who is set to challenge more established players.

Recognition in the form of Ernst & Young's award for being the best entrepreneur in the services category this year has been the icing on the cake in a year of dramatic action.

Success has come through both start-ups and acquisitions "" the latest being a determined entry into the print media space, marking perhaps the most significant diversification for the hitherto electronic media company.

In the last few weeks, he has signed up with Jagran Prakashan to start a joint venture that will start a Hindi business newspaper "" Bahl's first foray into the competitive newspaper world, but also innovative in that it is in a language new to business newspapers.

Before that, he announced the acquisition of Infomedia India, the niche magazine and yellow pages company which also owns Cricinfo and the computer magazine Chip, for about Rs 450 crore. In between there was the joint venture with Forbes to start an Indian edition of the well-known American magazine.

Before print, it was diversification within television, beginning with the masterstroke of luring Rajdeep Sardesai away from NDTV to start the rival IBN news channel, followed by the acquisition in stages of Channel 7 (now IBN7), the Hindi news operation which had been started by Jagran. With these, he straddled the television space as effectively as Prannoy Roy's NDTV, covering general and business news, in English as well as Hindi.

Indeed, with much better profit figures, Bahl commands a superior market cap for the firm, at about Rs 2,600 crore "" up from no more than Rs 100 crore not so long ago "" and has a growing list of marquee international media giants as partners: Viacom, CNBC and Forbes.

At an earlier stage of evolution, it was the Internet that grabbed attention. Bahl bought moneycontrol.com and turned it into a powerful website for investors. Then it was the wholesale hiring of the Sahara group's film division team, to start film production and distribution under the banner of Studio 18.

This unit has invested in yet another 50:50 joint venture, with Viacom, to set up Viacom 18 for running general entertainment channels in India. In between, he acquired a struggling business wire service and re-christened it Newswire 18, investing heavily to try and make it a low-cost rival to business news behemoths like Reuters and Bloomberg.

Many of the new businesses are still sucking in cash, and therefore eating into the group's profit numbers. But Bahl sees this as investment in growth.

What next? "There is absolutely no immediate design on any company but, yes, the two missing pieces in our media business "" animation and gaming, and radio "" are on our theoretical wish list. I'd love to be in the radio business and we will not miss an acquisition opportunity," Bahl told Business Standard.

Others in the media business are impressed. INX Media's chief strategy officer, Peter Mukerjea, says: "I admire his entrepreneurship. He has not only created a fortune from scratch, but has held his ground in the face of competition from foreign media players like Star and large Indian conglomerates with financial muscle like Zee, and those with political backing like Sun."

An executive in a rival media group says that TV 18 has been transformed from an owner-driven company to a professionally-managed organisation.

"Bahl's strength lies in bringing about that change and sharing wealth with his employees," he observes. Bahl himself says: "With the Infomedia acquisition, we are now 6,000 employees strong. It is important to keep the spirit of a small company alive in a big organisation."

Sceptics find the pace of Network 18's growth breathless and suggest that the organisation lacks the management bandwidth for such rapid expansion and diversification. Bahl does not agree. "I don't think we are out of control. I have an excellent managerial team," he says. "We are not reckless," he adds.

The one regret that he has is diluting too much equity in the company in the early years. There was no structured finance available and "nobody backed a young, inexperienced person". So equity was the cheapest way to get money.

"But if I had today's wisdom I would not dilute so much because you are selling your growth in perpetuity," Bahl says. He holds almost 30 per cent in the firm today.

A Hindi film freak (he disguises it as work now, since he's viewing films that his company distributes), he plays golf occasionally and spends a "lot of time" with his two children. That's when he's not spending hours travelling and even more hours "waiting at overcrowded airports". Success comes with its small aggravations.