Lax Market Forces Set To Skip Ipo

Sony Entertainment Television (SET) has decided against tapping the capital markets for an initial public offering this year due to depressed market conditions.

Instead, SET will focus on its area of core competence -the satellite channel business. There at present two channels from the Sony stable being beamed in India --Sony and Set Max.

The company has however decided to go ahead with its plans for film production in India. The film distribution business will also continue.

Rajesh Pant, chief operating officer said, "An IPO is not in the pipeline this year as the market is down. All our projects will be funded through internal accrual." Sony has also decided not to go ahead with its web-casting plans of its channels. Its channels were being web cast on Pentamedia's Num TV on an experimental basis.

The company is negotiating with several banks and financial for its proposed film production plans.

Pant declined to give details on the plans for film production, but said, "We are expecting our movie production and distribution divisions to contribute a major portion of our revenues. It's going to take a fairly substantial company to continue in this business as international markets for Hindi movies are restricted due to lesser number of shows as well as the piracy problems."

Sony has kicked off its operations in these divisions by distributing "Mission Kashmir" and "Lagaan" internationally.

The company has released over 100 prints of "Lagaan" in the US, UK, Europe, Middle-East, Mauritius, South Africa and Singapore, among others.

Sony has pegged the overseas film distribution market for Indian films at Rs 2,000 crore. The company may also move to distribute Tamil and Telugu movies as well as animation movies.