Q: What is the cash position right now for each one of the entities under Network 18? Are you looking at more fund raising options for any of the entities?

A: Our cash position continues to be extremely comfortable. We are at the group level holding nearly Rs 1,000 crore of cash. We are talking about cash that can be drawn down by writing or signing a slip of paper within the next one hour. So, this is cash either in bank deposits or in AAA rated bonds. So, the group has about Rs 1,000 crore of that with itself.

A lot of this money has also been allocated. About Rs 200 crore of this will be paid out for the acquisition of Infomedia. We have allocated another Rs 100 crore for our print properties, which are Forbes, Jagran18 and the impending English newspaper.

We have earmarked about Rs 30 crore for CNBC’s regional news channel foray. We have got roughly Rs 50 crore earmarked for Web18's expansion, especially the investment into in.com. All the other properties are pretty much self-sustaining. It is just in.com that needs that kind of corpus of capital to expand.

In the other properties, we have a commitment to Viacom18 over the next three years to put in roughly USD 40 million. That is something that will come out of the balance sheet of IBN18. But that clearly is a group commitment that we have to meet.

So, out of the Rs 1,000 crore, roughly Rs 600 crore across the group would be committed, leaving us with Rs 400 crore as balance cash with us. We can think of deploying it as some attractive new opportunity comes up.

As for cash raising within the group, since we are a fast growing and extremely acquisitive group, we are always on the lookout for where value can be unlocked for our shareholders, as well as for the group and raise cash.

We have just raised USD 21 million in Homeshop18 two weeks ago, valuing the company spectacularly. It is a one-year old investment, in which we would have put in no more than USD 2-3 million.

I am not at liberty to give exact numbers. But that investment must have gone up 30-40 times in 1.5 years of Homeshop18’s operations.

Q: Are you setting out a guidance for the kind of growth that you can see from Homeshop 18? Studio 18 has not contributed too much in terms of revenues this quarter around compared to the previous quarter. What is the kind of timeline that you are looking at whereby these ventures can be more productive and contributory? 

A: Studio18 has now been transferred to Viacom18 as a part of the joint venture with Viacom. The Viacom18 results are not consolidated here. So, Studio18 has done very well. Studio18 is in fact getting ready to release Singh Is King. So, hopefully, it will be it’s biggest film this year. It is just that since Viacom18 is currently not consolidated in these results, you are not seeing Studio18’s contribution.

Since you have raised this point, there are three of our properties which are not currently consolidated in these results. They are very important properties for us: Viacom18, Infomedia and IBN7.

Those numbers are not being consolidated into the topline of the company. If we were to consolidate them, the topline of this company would not be Rs 138 crore. It would probably be over Rs 300 crore. It is just that there are accounting and regulatory steps that need to be fulfilled before we can begin this consolidation.

We expect that in the next few weeks to months it will be over. So, what we are looking at for Network 18 is not an Rs 138 crore topline company. It is actually a Rs 300 crore plus topline company once a few regulatory issues are behind us.

Every property is contributing. When we say the growth rate of Homeshop18 has gone from Rs 30 lakh to about Rs 2.5 crore, we are talking about the commission income that Homeshop18 gets.

If you look at the gross sales of Homeshop18, those are in the region of Rs 30 crore a month. So, we are just booking the commission income that we are getting. All over the world, the accounting standard is to book the growth sales and we should also look at doing that because that may just give a more accurate sense to our shareholders.

But the fact is that Homeshop18 is doing Rs 30-40 crore of sales in the quarter and is booking a commission income against it.

So, almost every property is contributing well ahead of its business plan. In fact, I cannot think of any property which is behind the business plan at this point.         

(Note: Web18, which owns Moneycontrol.com and Indiaearnings.com, belongs to the Network18 Group)