Gradiente Infotainment Limited, a Hyderabad-based media and entertainment company, is in the process of acquiring a Hindi general entertainment channel (GEC) for Rs 50 crore, according to chairman and managing director Vimal Raj Mathur.
“We are in negotiation with three Hindi GECs and expect to close a deal shortly. The re-christened channel will go on air in January 2013,” he told Business Standard.
The publicly-listed company is re-entering film production, a business it had left a few years ago. The company had, till 1996, produced three Hindi films including ‘Warrant’. It is now lining up three feature films – one in Telugu and two in Hindi – across action and romantic-comedy genres, each with a modest budget of around Rs 6 crore.
“While the Telugu film ‘Gud Morning’ is completed, the two Hindi movies are in the scripting stage. They will go on floor from October, and will be ready for exclusive multiplex audience release by March 2013,” Mathur said.
Gradiente is initiating a fund-raising exercise for its proposed acquisition of the Hindi channel for film production and for constructing a corporate office with an investment of Rs 20 crore. Mathur said the company would go in for a preferential issue to raise about Rs 30 crore next month, Rs 100 crore via long-term debt and the remaining through internal accruals.
Looking beyond national boundaries, he said, the company had also initiated talks with digital media houses based in Hong Kong and Singapore for joint venture projects.
“We expect to forge tie-ups with these entities shortly,” he said, adding the company was optimistic about the near future and had targeted a turnover of Rs 50 crore for the 2012-13 financial year, as against Rs 37 crore last fiscal.
