Essel Group mulls strategy to undo recent reverses

FIGHTBACK: The dismal viewership of India Cricket League and Zee Next drives the group to improve its performance.

When the Delhi High Court last week stayed the Company Law Board's order holding the Essel Group's claim on news agency United News of India "null and void", it marked the group's fightback to rectify some recent business reverses.

When the CLB gave its order, for a moment it seemed the Subhash Chandra-promoted group had lost its bid for the agency.

It came after the lesser-than-expected performance of the group's India Cricket League and Zee Next, the television channel launched for the youth.

It all started some years back when the group failed to get the telecast rights for cricket matches from the Board for Control of Cricket in India.

After a long drawn battle, the five-year telecast rights were bagged by Nimbus Communications.

"Most of our initiatives have met with success. Our mega project of creating a special economic zone in Maharashtra is also on track with land acquisition and other permissions in place," Essel Executive Vice-President Ashish Kaul said in defence, adding, "We have been favourably heard at the Delhi HC on UNI case too and ICL is a success for us as we are rolling out more tournaments."

Group insiders say they are putting in place new strategies for the takeover of UNI and ICL. However, they admit that at least two businesses that failed to live up to expectations "" Agrani, the electronic retail chain, and Zee Next, the youth channel "" are no longer priority areas.

At UNI, the Essel Group can now restore its directors on the UNI board and will be able to participate in any decision regarding the future of the agency.

Its Rs 32 crore bid for UNI takeover had hit a roadblock after the Company Law Board held the transfer of unsubscribed shared of UNI to Media Vest, an Essel Group company, null and void.

For ICL, the Essel Group is set to hire another 50-80 budding cricketers to play for upcoming five tournaments.

It will also build a cricket stadium within this year, company executives said. However, it faces stiff competition from BCCI's Indian Premier League. Leading businessmen like Mukesh Ambani and Vijay Mallya have bagged IPL teams and promise to pump in a lot more.

"ICL was formed to give world-class opportunities to budding cricketers who, otherwise, would never have been picked by the BCCI. It was successful in that and we are taking our mission forward this year too," Kaul said.

The group will have to address the problem. Its recent ICL matches on Zee Sports failed to get much viewership. The average ratings for the 25-matches stood at 0.5 and the average time spent on Zee Sports, Essel Group's sports channel, was seven minutes.

These numbers, according to experts are dismal for any internationally televised cricket matches on cable and satellite mode in recent times. Efforts are on to make the forthcoming ICL matches more interesting for the 76 million cable homes, company executives say.

On the infrastructure projects front, Essel Infrastructure recently bagged the contract of four-laning a 25-km highway in Madhya Pradesh connecting Lebad to Jaora, Kaul said.

According to company executives, the work on this stretch will commence by the end of next month. The Essel Infrastructure is already involved in the four-laning of 40-km Manmad-Malegaon stretch in Maharashtra.