Henderson Equity Partners-backed HT Media is looking to raise Rs 300 crore through a public float of its Hindi print media subsidiary HT Media Ventures(HMVL). The company publishes one of the largest read Indian dailies Hindustan besides Hindi magazines such as Nandan and Kadambini.
Assuming equity dilution of 25-30%, the issue could be priced around Rs 125-160 a piece as per VCCircle estimates. At this level, the company could be aiming at a valuation of Rs 1,000-1,200 crore (~$240-260 million).
This appears to be benchmarked marginally above other listed media companies in the space such as Jagran Prakashan that has market cap of around Rs 3,600 crore with four times the net profit of HMVL. HMVL had revenues of Rs 276 crore with net profit of Rs 31 crore for the eight months period ended November’09.
HMVL would become the second company in the same segment of the business to go public in recent months. Warburg Pincus-backed DB Corp that publishes Dainik Bhaskar had recently got listed and commands a valuation marginally short of $1 billion mark.
DB Corp has become the most valued print media company in the stock exchange overtaking Deccan Chronicle, Jagran Prakashan and HT Media. It only trails Sun TV and Zee Entertainment in the overall media pack.
Edelweiss and Kotak Mahindra Capital are the book running lead managers to the proposed issue.
