Moser Baer India, the optical storage media major, is not buying additional content for its entertainment venture due to an overheated market.
Will use up existing content in the interim
NEW DELHI: Moser Baer India, the optical storage media major, is not buying additional content for its entertainment venture due to an overheated market. It will use up existing content in the interim.
The New Delhi-based maker of CDs and DVDs said it currently has about 10,000 titles, which it considers raw material in this business.
Ratul Puri, executive director, told DNA Money, “We went out very aggressively and acquired content at the right time. We stopped buying when we saw substantial inflation in the cost of content…from the early part of this year. We thought the entertainment sector was grossly overheated; it’s still overheated, but has cooled down in the last couple of months.”
Moser Baer, which controls over 70% of the home entertainment business in India, will start buying content as soon as it is “appropriately priced,” said Puri. “We are a content distribution company, content is our raw material…the good news is that we bought huge piles of raw material before cost hikes.”
The company has already launched 6,000 titles so far. But it has no immediate plans to get into production of movies, Puri said. “We view our core business as distribution of content. We selectively look at production as and when the opportunity is right, and we have done that in the past. We will take on projects if we think it adds to our portfolio and is accretive to the business. If not, we will step away from the business,” he said.
The company already has titles like mythological hits Mahabharat, Ramayan, and Shree Krishna. Revenue from this segment is expected to be $80-100 million this fiscal. The company has planned capital expenditure of $40 million for the year ending March.
Meanwhile, Moser Baer is looking to list its photovoltaic business, but not immediately as its current funding requirements have been met. “The good news is that we are substantially funded…We believe that to capture value at the parent level, we will need to list this business. But we are in no hurry,” Puri said.
In September, Moser Baer offloaded 6.5% equity stake in the photovoltaic subsidiary to raise Rs 411 crore from a consortium of investors including Nomura, CDC Group, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and IDFC.
vivek_s@dnaindia.net 
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