UFO Moviez files DRHP for Rs750 crore public offering

Mumbai: UFO Moviez India, India’s largest digital cinema distribution network and in-cinema advertising platform in terms of numbers of screens, plans to raise around 750 crore through an offer for sale.

The company filed a draft red herring prospectus with regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on 18 December. According to the offer document, the selling shareholders include private equity (PE) investors such as 3i Research (Mauritius) Ltd, P5 Asia Holding Investments (Mauritius) Ltd (P5) and promoters selling their partial holdings in the company. P5 Asia Holding Investments (Mauritius) currently holds 35.73%, 3i Research (Mauritius) 21.49%, Valuable Technologies 11.86%, Apollo International 8.75% and Apollo Group’s director Raaja Kanwar owns 2.18% stake in the company, the offer document said.

UFO Moviez operates India’s largest satellite-based, digital cinema distribution network using its UFO-M4 platform, as well as India’s largest D-Cinema network. In fiscal year 2014, the company digitally delivered more than 1,500 movies in 22 languages to 4,703 screens with aggregate seating capacity of approximately 2.14 million viewers spread across India. Since the beginning of its operations, it has digitally delivered more than 8,100 movies in India.

As at October 31, 2014, its global network spans 6,611 screens worldwide, including 4,912 screens across India and 1,699 screens across Nepal, the Middle East, Israel, Mexico and the US. According to Crisil report, UFO Moviez has an overall 54% market share in India’s digital cinema exhibition industry in terms of screens that use digital cinema distribution networks, as a result of which, specialists believe, almost every film released in India is released on UFO network.

Last year, the company had consolidated revenues of 421 crore and a net profit of 46.54 crore. For the six months ended 30 September 2014, its consolidated total revenue was 233.072 crore and consolidated profit after tax was 21.010 crore.