Indian Film Company, which is listed on LSE's Alternate Investment Market, has said that it has received an interest from Deutsche Bank AG for a more than 10% stake. Deutsche Bank has proposed subscription of 5,803,500 ordinary shares in IFC, the company said informing its shareholders.
IFC is a part of Raghav Bahl's TV18 group. At current market capitalisation of $45.8 million, the stake would amount to somewhere around $4.61 million. IFC's board had last month passed on the resolution to issue 8,244,500 ordinary shares to raise the funds. The shares of IFC are currently trading at 46 pence as against its listing price of 100 pence.
IFC was listed at AIM in June 2007 and it raised around $100 million (Rs 445 crore). Some of the movies released by IFC are Jab We Met, Welcome and Singh Is King recently. For FY08, it reported revenues of $20.5 million and profit after tax of more than $4 million. IFC is expected to release about 10 more such movies. Some of its upcoming movies include Aamir Khan-starrer Ghajini and Sanjay Dutt-starrer Kidnap.
Quite a few Indian companies engaged in the film business have listed on AIM. Apart from IFC, other film companies are Eros International, UMP (UTV Motion Pictures) and DQ Entertainment. Recently Bobby Bedi-led production house Kaleidoscope was also reported to be exploring the option list at AIM and raise around $100 million. Others like Zee Motion Pictures and Balaji Motion Pictures are also mulling an AIM listing.