Research and investment houses have recommended the initial public offer (IPO) of equity shares by Raj Television Network. The company entered the capital markets on February 14, with an IPO of equity shares at a face value of Rs 10 on a price band of Rs 221-257 per share.

Raj Television is one of the largest regional satellite television broadcasters and the second largest regional channel pay network in Tamil Nadu.

"In view of the flourishing entertainment sector, and the company’s expansion plans, we believe this IPO should be looked at from a medium-term perspective," say analysts from Keynote Capitals Research.

They feel that an extensive line up of attractive programming and content mix which caters to the entertainment needs of the entire family and a movie database of over 1384 Tamil films comprising old classics to recent blockbusters have the potential to boost up the margins of the company future.

According to analysts at the Angel Broking, at the upper end of the price band of Rs 257, Raj Television stock would trade at a P/E of 20x its FY2008 expected EPS. Its closest peer comparison would be Sun TV, which is the most dominant regional TV broadcaster in the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala and trades at 32x its FY2008 expected EPS. Considering the growth potential for Raj Television Network and its relative valuation, "We recommend a subscribe to the issue," they said. Indiabulls analysts said that the revenue has grown to Rs 33.79 crore at a CAGR of 6.9 per cent over FY 02 to FY 06.

Courtesy : Asianage.com

While the Union Budget could focus on some more rationalisation on the tax front as usual, it has got very limited scope on this front. However, there is a scope for removing various cess that were part of the infrastructure spending. Budget should also provide a road map on the ways and means to finance the infrastructure project. The government may probably permit banks to raise exclusive resources through issuance of bonds to finance the infrastructure projects.

Housing sector needs more attention in the Budget. The creation of wealth has played a big role in the economic growth; however, they it has not contributed much to the exchequer so far.

Therefore, the housing sector should be regulated by a nodal agency jointly with respective state governments on the lines of TRAI, NHAI etc. Like capital market reform, the real estate sector reform should be introduced. The Central government should charge a cess for every square foot of transaction both for housing and commercial properties.

The Budget should focus on unearthing black money by imposing a penalty on all transactions in the housing sector below the price provided by the state governments.

The state governments should revise the price chart once in every three months. This would eventually help developing real estate mutual funds or real estate private equity funds. To increase the number of taxpayers, the post office could be used as a nodal agency in supporting IT authorities in collecting the PAN application forms. The post office branches and employees should get incentives on the basis of per PAN application. The Budget should focus on public sector enterprises (PSE) reform. Indian private corporates have benefited so far due to sweating of assets, thus, improving the productivity of the assets.

Mergers and acquisitions have been unlocking value for shareholders in the private sector and discovering new value for owners/promoters. In the entire process, the private sector’s market cap has gone up significantly in the last few years. However, the value of the BSE PSU index has remained more or less the same in the last one year.

Courtesy : Asianage.com

Essar Global on Tuesday said it has acquired Global Vantedge, a BPO company owned by Chrys Capital. This is part of Essar’s plan to have a larger footprint in the BPO segment. Essar has a presence in the BPO segment through its wholly owned subsidiary — Aegis BPO.

Global Vantege has over 1,400 employees with facilities in Gurgaoan in India and San Jose, Costa Rica. This acquisition is expected to contribute over $25 million in revenues to the BPO business of Essar and is its fourth acquisition in the last one year, the other three being Customer First and Orion in India and Technion in the USA.

Commenting on this acquisition, Aparup Sengupta, CEO of the BPO business of Essar Global in India, said, "With this acquisition, we now have formidable strengths in this nich segment and will be able to offer the full suite of service offerings around customer life cycle management.

"We have built the largest collections BPO in India and do feel happy that it is now part of a larger canvas at Aegis" said Brahmal Vasudevan, managing director, Chrys Capital.

Aegis BPO, is art of Essar Global operates integrated BPO services with a presence in interaction services, back office services and value added services. Aegis currently has revenues of over $180 million. It is India’s fifth largest BPO company.

Aegis has a global delivery model with centers across the USA and India with over 9,000 employees with expertise in telecom, insurance, banking a and Healthcare.

Courtesy : Asianage.com