Nimbus Communications Ltd, known for its Neo Cricket and Neo Sports channels plans to raise around Rs 900-crore through its initial public offer (IPO) in January.
"The company proposes to issue 22,050,000 equity shares, which comprises of fresh issue of 14,040,000 equity shares and offer for sale of 8,010,000 equity shares in January," Nimbus Communications Chairman Harish Thawani told reporters here.
The Americorp Ventures Limited, CSI BD (Mauritius) and Funderburk Enterprises Limited, Nimbus' investors, are partially divesting their stake, while the core promoters and another investor 3i Sports are not selling any stake in the IPO, Thawani said.
"Following the last placement that happened at the rate of Rs 446 per share, the IPO of 22,050,000 equity shares will be sized at over Rs 900-crore," banking sources said.
The company has drawn up Rs 350-crore capital expenditure plan which will be met through the IPO proceeds. The company proposes to expand its broadcasting business, expand its sports rights management business and develop a portfolio of owned/property sports events, he said.
Nimbus intends to spend Rs 129.1 crore to launch two new channels and Rs 13.2 crore on expanding Neo Cricket-its exclusive cricket channel-to North America. The company will spend around Rs 35 crore on upgrading its production capabilities while another Rs 50 crore is earmarked for buying new broadcasting rights.
Neo Sports Broadcast, its joint venture, currently owns and operates two television channels, Neo Cricket and Neo Sports. Its flagship channel, Neo Cricket is available in over 25 countries globally. Cricket accounts for over 90 per cent of the total value of the sports marketing business in India.
"We intend to expand the reach of Neo Cricket to cover additional regions around the world, particularly in regions with a concentration of expatriate Indian population. As a part of the next phase of expansion, we intend to expand the geographical reach of Neo Cricket to include North America and other parts of Asia with a high Indian expatriate population," Thawani said.
The company also plans to launch two new 24 hours channels 'Neo Cinema' and 'Neo Zindagi'. The plans to launch the third channel, however, are currently at a preliminary stage.
Neo Cinema will focus on Hindi feature films and film-based content, while Neo Zindagi will be a lifestyle channel primarily for women, Thawani said.
The company also proposes to expand its sports rights management business.
"Our core competency is sports rights management. Over the years we have successfully acquired/represented, managed and marketed various commercial rights for a number of global sports events. We intend to continue to leverage our relationships and proven expertise in acquiring commercial rights from other cricket federations as well as federations and rights owners in other sports such as hockey, football and golf," Thawani said.
The company is also looking at developing a portfolio of owned/proprietary sports events.
One of our key strategies in the future is to develop a portfolio of sports events for which the commercial interest and intellectual property rights are entirely owned by us, he said.
In this connection, the company has procured sanctions for events in cricket, golf and football. It has entered into any agreement with the Asian Tour International Limited, Hong Kong to organise a series of golf events across Asia.
It has also recently entered into an agreement with the Singapore Cricket Association to act as sales and marketing representative for an initial period until March 31, 2012 with an option to extend the agreement for a further period of three years. This agreement also permits our Company to organise its own club level cricket tournaments in Singapore, Thawani said.
