IPL is entertainment, that's what it is about: Sun TV CFO

V C Unnikrishnan, chief financial officer of Sun TV said that the acquisition of IPL team in Hyderabad will be funded through internal accruals. Last year Sun TV's PAT was around Rs 700 crore. So the company has a good cash accrual and so to fund the acquisition. The IPL team will be under the listed entity which is Sun Television Network (Sun TV), one of the largest media conglomerate in the country.

“We are into the business of Media and Entertainment. Cricket is possibly the largest entertainment which happens in the country in terms of sports. We have looked at an opportunity, which the BCCI has issued a tender for 12 cities. Two of them were in South -- Kochi and Hyderabad. So we made a bid for Hyderabad team”.

In Andhra Pradesh, Sun TV has Gemini TV and a host of other channels and the company has a stronghold in Andhra Pradesh. The ability to leverage in other part of South India using this brand is large.

“Possibly this will add on a little more brand image, but we may not be looking at getting into any Hindi space. Definitely IPL is a bigger franchise compared to a radio station. But what I am saying is we already had a presence and Sun Group is know through the radio stations there. Definitely this will add much more visibility and focus”.

He added, it (IPL) is a value creation at the end of the day and in terms of company's ability and the company has variety of businesses in which the Group per say has done or in the way the company has looked into at different points of time.

“We have ensured that our toplines do definitely grow and we also add to the bottomline. Value addition for shareholders has been kept foremost. If you look at our numbers, despite the last year being a little bad, our numbers are still strong amongst the other players. We have a very high payout ratio in terms of divident ratio also. Our focus will be to that, and this will slowly augment the outcome comes in a long run,” said Unnikrishnan.

Apart from around 30 television channels, Sun TV also have radio stations in South and North, Red FM and Suryan FM. Sun TV today has 46 radio stations across the country, of which 18 stations are in South India. In North India through the Red FM brand the company has presence.

Kalanithi Maran is the owner of $2.8 billion Sun Group which Thursday won the Hyderabad franchise of the Indian Premier League. The 48-year-old Kalanithi Maran is the son of former Union Minister for Commerce Murasoli Maran and elder brother of former union textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran.

As per Forbes.com, Kalanithi is currently 24th in the list of richest Indians - a list that includes big names like Ambani brothers Mukesh and Anil, steel baron Lakshmi Mittal, Azeem Premji, Adi Godrej, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Rahul Bajaj to name a few.

An MBA from the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania), the media tycon from Chennai has diverse business interest from owning TV channels, Tamil newspapers, DTH business, movie business and also in Aviation through SpiceJet airlines.

The company started on April 14, 1993 with $86,000 exactly 10 years and 10 days after the launch on April 24, 2006 - the company was listed in Bomaby Stock Exchange upon raising $133 million, according to reports.