Dinesh jain
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Taking advantage of the upbeat market
sentiment, two regional multi-system operators
(MSOs) are showing exuberance in tapping the
IPO market.
Fastway Transmissions, a joint venture between
Gurdeep Singh and Digicable Network India, is
planning to raise capital through an initial public
offering (IPO) to fund its digital cable and
broadband business. Odisha-based Ortel
Communications has already got the SEBI nod to
head for an IPO.
“Yes, we have an IPO plan. We intend to file
draft with market regulator SEBI next year,”
Fastway Transmissions founder and managing
director Gurdeep Singh told TelevisionPost.com.
Though the size of the IPO is yet to be decided,
Fastway Transmissions is looking to invest Rs
400 crore (Rs 4 billion) in the broadband
business. For cable TV digitisation, Fastway has
access to Cisco’s vendor financing.
“The IPO could be in the range of Rs 400 crore
(Rs 4 billion). But it is too early to give an
indicative size. We have also not decided on how
much we will dilute as there is still time for
that,” Singh said.
Will Fastway look at private equity investors
ahead of the IPO? “No, we are not going to have
a PE investor. Bank debt is better than that. The
current debt in the company is in the range of Rs
400 crore. For equity financing, we will do an
IPO,” Singh averred.
Besides cable TV operations, Fastway runs 94
local channels. “The television channels will
remain very much a part of the company which
we propose to list,” Singh said.
According to Singh, Fastway’s EBITDA stood at
Rs 96 crore (Rs 960 million) in FY14 on a
turnover of Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.5 billion).
Carriage accounted for Rs 80–85 crore (Rs
800-850 million). The company has so far
invested Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) in the
venture, Singh said.
Though the Narendra Modi-led BJP government
has extended the sunset date for analogue cable
in Phase III cities to 31 December 2015 and
Phase IV towns to 31 December 2016, Singh
believes in voluntary digitisation.
“The only way to counter DTH effectively is to
offer quality digital cable TV services. Even if the
government has extended the deadline, voluntary
digitisation will help the MSOs to stabilise their
network in the 12 to 18 months, and recover the
price of the set-top boxes (STBs) on time. If
they wait till the last moment, there is danger of
box swapping. We propose to completely digitise
our network ahead of the deadline mandated by
the government,” he said.
Fastway Transmissions, which is the dominant
MSO in Punjab, has spread out its services to
Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and the union
territory of Chandigarh.
“We have deployed 600,000 STBs in Amritsar,
Ludhiana and Chandigarh which fall under Phase
II of DAS (digital addressable system). The rest
of the cities where we operate fall under Phases
III and IV, but we have done voluntary
digitisation,” said Singh.
Fastway’s focus has been on quality services so
that the MSO can collect high ARPU (average
revenue per user) from its subscribers. In Punjab,
Fastway’s ARPU is Rs 260 per subscriber a
month.
“That is the way to go forward so that the MSO,
the LCOs (local cable operators) and the
broadcasters can all make money. We use Cisco
boxes. We experimented with the cheaper STBs
initially, but 10–12 per cent of those had to be
returned due to faults. And customers also were
not happy. So we decided to go for expensive
but better technology. We have also connected
the whole network with 10,000 km of
underground fibre,” said Singh.
Hathway Cable & Datacom, DEN Networks and
Siti Cable Network Ltd are the three national
MSOs which are listed. Agra-based Sea TV
Network is the only small MSO which has gone
public.
MSO Fastway Transmissions plans IPO | TelevisionPost.com
sentiment, two regional multi-system operators
(MSOs) are showing exuberance in tapping the
IPO market.
Fastway Transmissions, a joint venture between
Gurdeep Singh and Digicable Network India, is
planning to raise capital through an initial public
offering (IPO) to fund its digital cable and
broadband business. Odisha-based Ortel
Communications has already got the SEBI nod to
head for an IPO.
“Yes, we have an IPO plan. We intend to file
draft with market regulator SEBI next year,”
Fastway Transmissions founder and managing
director Gurdeep Singh told TelevisionPost.com.
Though the size of the IPO is yet to be decided,
Fastway Transmissions is looking to invest Rs
400 crore (Rs 4 billion) in the broadband
business. For cable TV digitisation, Fastway has
access to Cisco’s vendor financing.
“The IPO could be in the range of Rs 400 crore
(Rs 4 billion). But it is too early to give an
indicative size. We have also not decided on how
much we will dilute as there is still time for
that,” Singh said.
Will Fastway look at private equity investors
ahead of the IPO? “No, we are not going to have
a PE investor. Bank debt is better than that. The
current debt in the company is in the range of Rs
400 crore. For equity financing, we will do an
IPO,” Singh averred.
Besides cable TV operations, Fastway runs 94
local channels. “The television channels will
remain very much a part of the company which
we propose to list,” Singh said.
According to Singh, Fastway’s EBITDA stood at
Rs 96 crore (Rs 960 million) in FY14 on a
turnover of Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.5 billion).
Carriage accounted for Rs 80–85 crore (Rs
800-850 million). The company has so far
invested Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) in the
venture, Singh said.
Though the Narendra Modi-led BJP government
has extended the sunset date for analogue cable
in Phase III cities to 31 December 2015 and
Phase IV towns to 31 December 2016, Singh
believes in voluntary digitisation.
“The only way to counter DTH effectively is to
offer quality digital cable TV services. Even if the
government has extended the deadline, voluntary
digitisation will help the MSOs to stabilise their
network in the 12 to 18 months, and recover the
price of the set-top boxes (STBs) on time. If
they wait till the last moment, there is danger of
box swapping. We propose to completely digitise
our network ahead of the deadline mandated by
the government,” he said.
Fastway Transmissions, which is the dominant
MSO in Punjab, has spread out its services to
Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and the union
territory of Chandigarh.
“We have deployed 600,000 STBs in Amritsar,
Ludhiana and Chandigarh which fall under Phase
II of DAS (digital addressable system). The rest
of the cities where we operate fall under Phases
III and IV, but we have done voluntary
digitisation,” said Singh.
Fastway’s focus has been on quality services so
that the MSO can collect high ARPU (average
revenue per user) from its subscribers. In Punjab,
Fastway’s ARPU is Rs 260 per subscriber a
month.
“That is the way to go forward so that the MSO,
the LCOs (local cable operators) and the
broadcasters can all make money. We use Cisco
boxes. We experimented with the cheaper STBs
initially, but 10–12 per cent of those had to be
returned due to faults. And customers also were
not happy. So we decided to go for expensive
but better technology. We have also connected
the whole network with 10,000 km of
underground fibre,” said Singh.
Hathway Cable & Datacom, DEN Networks and
Siti Cable Network Ltd are the three national
MSOs which are listed. Agra-based Sea TV
Network is the only small MSO which has gone
public.
MSO Fastway Transmissions plans IPO | TelevisionPost.com
