New Delhi, Delhi, India, January 24, 2008
Rajat Sharma on Wednesday announced a major strategic investment of Rs 100 crore in Independent News Service Pvt Ltd (INS), the holding company of Hindi news channel India TV. The investment takes India TV’s enterprise valuation to Rs 500 crore, up a whopping 86 per cent from Rs 270 crore in just nine months.
The Rs 100-crore investment for a 20 per cent stake in INS has been made by Shyam Equities Pvt Ltd, a 100 per cent Indian entity, based in Bangalore. Accordingly, the foreign individual, foreign company, NRI, OCB, FII and PIO holdings in INS have remained at earlier levels.
The investment information has been filed with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Sharma noted with satisfaction “the excitement over the strategic growth blueprint that will be executed 2008”. The blueprint, he elaborated, includes large investments in key strategic areas beyond India TV. This includes a bouquet of channels, a distribution blitz in key international markets, and a significant entry into non-news and non-television media.
In March last year, Fuse+ Media, an entity of ComVentures, a leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital and private equity group with over $1.5 billion of assets under its management, had placed an equivalent of Rs 50.9 crore of FDI in INS for a 19.17 per cent stake, taking INS’ enterprise value to Rs 270 crore at that time.
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